Better Off Dead
by wingedmercury
Summary: When Hinata leaves Konoha, heartbroken but resolute, the last person she expects to see over the rim of her tea cup is him. "You look like you've just seen a ghost," he smirks, and Hinata thinks that some people are just better off dead.
1. Resignation

A/N Heh, heh! Hey kids! So, I finished NaNoWriMo early (YOSH! I WIN!) and I got bit by a plot bunny for a new fic. I estimate it'll probably be around 5 chapters, a shorty but a goody. I'll probably update again by next weekend:)

Summary:

When Hinata leaves Konoha, heartbroken but resolute, the last person she expects to see over the rim of her porcelain tea cup is the last Uchiha, whose blood and guts and flesh she saw explode like fireworks in the last war. She yelps, spitting hot tea all over his shirt. "You look like you've just seen a ghost," he smirks, and Hinata thinks that some people are just better off dead. SasuHina

Quotes are from traditional bluegrass versus which are in the PUBLIC DOMAIN and are not owned by anyone:)

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><p><em>Apples in the summertime, peaches in the fall, if I can't have the one I love I don't want none at all. <em>

"You're—you're what?" the Hokage asks her incredulously.

Hinata looks down at the floor; there's a a gray patch on the red carpet that she finds extremely engrossing, a little stain from when his oldest child threw up last winter. It had been a bad flu that year. Not that he knows that _she_ knows the origins of that throw-up stain; or, maybe, he does. Sometimes, Hinata thinks that he has known all the time.

"I'm tendering my resignation," Hinata murmurs, the sound barely audible. She still looks down at the floor, knowing full well that she would drown in the ocean of Naruto's eyes if she looks up, that her resolve would dissolve like salt, and…and. And she must be stronger, stronger, stronger than this. Stronger for him? Stronger…despite of him and because of him and everything, everything she does and has done and will ever do is for him and.

And she is done.

Her resignation papers are in one hand, and a newspaper advertisement is in the other.

Naruto stands suddenly, a flurry of papers cascading to the floor like white and black feathers, and he speaks, but Hinata can't make out the words; his voice has the cadence of a beautiful song, and for a moment, Hinata is lost in the melody. His strong, heavy hand rests on her shoulder and she backs up with a yelp; the spell is broken, and his hand falls, uselessly by his side. And because she is a coward, and she has always been a coward, she wordlessly hands him her official resignation paperwork and all but flies out of his office, her long black hair waving out behind her like a banner.

The day had started normally enough; Hinabi was reading her tiny child the story of the ugly duckling. Hinata had been visiting; she had been sipping tea, her eyes glazed over like a film-lined pond; watching Hinabi talk about ugly duckings was much like listening to a mallard squawking about the indignities done to less fortunate animals: _and wasn't that just awful, darling, when the duckies were mean to the poor little swan? Oh yes, we must never be mean to those who are ugly…_

Except that Hinabi was the proverbial hissing duck, and Hinata was ugly: but she was no swan. Hinabi had all but stolen Konohamaru away from Moegi after the former had proposed to the latter; Hinabi would often joke about it, _I knew he was too good for her, _and it would make Hinata's stomach clench. She knew what it was like to be an ugly duckling who never turned into a swan.

In a way, this ruthlessness makes Hinabi the perfect leader of the Hyuga— that's what Hinata thinks as she runs through the streets, her cheeks flushed from exertion, ignoring people who try to hail her on the street.

Perfect. That word describes Hinabi to a T; she is more beautiful, she is stronger, she is smarter, she is everything that Hinata is not.

Five years. It had been five years since the last, so-called, Great Ninja War, where Madara was sorely thrashed, and Sasuke's body was smashed to smithereens, then buried under the earth, the teeny tiny rent pieces of flesh, all laceration and the blood, oh the blood covered the earth and the sky like a great fireworks explosion.

Naruto gives a speech every year, on the anniversary of the war's end; he talks about how much he loved Sasuke, _like a brother,_ he would say; and he cries in front of the multitude of Konoha residents and rends his garments and beats his chest; behind him, a white memorial stands in front of the old Uchiha district, and in her heart, Hinata thinks that it is _all too much_, but she says nothing and weeps along with the civilian women. But who and what she is weeping for is a mystery, even to her.

And Hinata is weeping now, she is confusing past and present, but she knows where the tears come from this time and it rends her breast like the exploding flesh of the Uchiha traitor.

Earlier that morning, after the _Ugly Duckling Incident_, as she liked to call it, Hinata walked aimlessly though the town, upset but not knowing why, or what to do about it. So she bought herself a doughnut, a cup of coffee, and the morning paper; it seemed like a good idea at the time.

She had flipped through the paper, her all-seeing eyes scanning the black type but not really comprehending anything. Surreptitiously, she glanced at the personal ads, and considered becoming a lesbian; there were a few promising blurbs in the "Women Looking for Women" section. It was Hinabi's advice, really; since Hinata obviously had terrible luck with men. But in the end, none of the adverts appeal to her, and so she stuffed sugary cake into her mouth and washed down the sweet, chalky taste with black coffee; she turned a page. It was the employment section.

That newspaper page is currently clutched in Hinata's hand, and is dotted with tears, while Hinata herself is still run, run, running, as if she can outrun the past and just start over. On the crumpled newsprint is a circled ad that reads as follows:

_New Fire Temple (by the border with Tea) is looking for Vestal Virgins to tend the fire of our Lady, blessed be her name, the Hearth Goddess! Benefits include generous pay, full healthcare, a spacious room at the temple; food and clothes included. Generous paid vacation packages!_

_Applicants must be female, virgins, and must be willing to make a life-time commitment to our Lady, blessed be her name. Interviews begin at the end of the month. We hope to meet you soon!_

At the end of the advert, dates and addresses are given; Hinata now knows them by heart.

And as Hinata packs her small bag—one change of clothes, a small bottle of castile soap and her toothbrush, a picture of her mother— she wonders again why she is doing this? As she asks herself this question, her hands still over her pack and a cascade of images flutter through her head:

Naruto and Sakura's wedding. Tenten and Neji's wedding; Shikamaru and Temari, Choji and Ino, Hinabi and Konohamaru; worst of all, her father and some buxom black-haired woman, a lower officer from the branch family who had saved his life in the last war.

And then, the three pink-haired children of Naruto and Sakura; Hinata often watched their parents tuck them into bed from her habitual perch outside the Hokage mansion; and _yes_, she knew it was stalking, and _no, _she turned off her byakugan the minute Sakura and Naruto started sucking face, _thank you very much_. Hinabi had handed her a card to a very good therapist who specialized in _counseling those addicted to voyeurism, _and Hinata had burned said card with a chakra flare, again, _thank you very __much._

Hinata blinks and stuffs the rest of her meagre worldly possessions into a bag and wipes the blinding tears from her eyes. She knows Naruto is a good father; she can see the kindness in his eyes when he kisses his children goodnight, even though Hinata herself is many feet away. And she knows Naruto is happy; he loves Sakura very much, and he always has, and sometimes, when he kisses his wife, Hinata can't look away, and she thinks…she thinks…

She thinks things she shouldn't think, and she shuts off her ocular jutsu and smacks herself in the face, right in the eyes, as if she can erase everything she has seen.

And back to present time: as Hinata reaches the gates, her pack strung over her shoulder lackadaisically, as if she is some kind of devil-may-care hobo, her breath catches in her throat because everyone is at the gate—damn Naruto's sense of drama and the haraishin that ostensibly brought everyone and their mother to the gates— and there is Sakura, with that same stupid look on her face, the one that is half-sorry and half-nervous that she always wears around Hinata, because she _knows_.

And beside her is Naruto, his blond hair moving in the wind with the grace and perfection of a bleached wheat field, and his eyes. His eyes know, too. _Though he pretends he doesn't know._ And then Hinata curses herself, because maybe, just maybe, stalking the legendary disciple of the Toad Sanin wasn't the smartest thing to do, because he could _sense her the whole time and he never said anything, just ignored it all, like Sakura's uneasy smiles and half-hearted hellos; _and Hinata hates her life, and wishes the hearth goddess, whom she does not believe in, would just smite her on the spot in a blazing ball of fire.

Her eyes rove, briefly, to Kiba and Shino; they are holding hands, and their eyes beseech her to stay. And Kurenai sensei, her five-year-old son in her arms, she opens her mouth as if she wants to say something, but shuts it again when her eyes meet Hinata's.

Hinata bites her lip. The bitterness catches up with her, then: everyone standing in her path, between her trembling body and the gates, they all have a lover or a child. Even Rock Lee, Konoha's number one Ugly, had fathered several illegitimate (and youthful!) children over the last five years with various and sundry, good looking civilian women.

And Hinata is alone. She is always alone. And so she is going to offer her body, mind, and soul to the Vestal goddess, where at least she will won't be surrounded by people who are getting laid; by people who love _and are loved._

She meets Naruto's eyes one last time, and she can tell that he knows what she is thinking and feeling—because he has always known, but yet, makes no move to really acknowledge— and before anyone can tell her what she is doing is stupid, and foolhardy, and where the hell is she going anyway— she shushins away, and all that is left of where she was standing are a few rose petals, fragrant and falling on the wind.

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><p>an yeah, it starts a little angsty; things will definitely get lighter next chapter:)

reviews= faster updates:)


	2. Tea's Tea and The Stalker's Stalker

_a/n wow, holy cow, I didn't think this would be such a hit! I don't think I've ever gotten so many fav's and subscriptions for a first chapter. Thanks! Your reviews were also super sweet; guess all the SasuHina fans are coming out of the woodwork:)_

_Special thanks to _**Ninjakittee**_, my beta extraordinaire. Without her, you would have to deal with some spelling mistakes:) If you haven't checked out her fic, "Angel Clan," 'tis a yummy fic:)_

_Onwards to the 2__nd__ chapter; will do my best to update again next weekend:) xoxoxo!_

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><p><strong><em>Tea's Tea and The Stalker's Stalker<em>**

Hinata is drinking tea; the hot liquid is thick, and smokey, and pure luxury after traveling on foot for over a week, with little to drink besides tepid water from her canteen and instant coffee. Today is the day of her interview, and Hinata is uneasy. She can't help it; being a nervous Nellie is her nature. Will she be accepted as a Vestal virgin? Lord knows she has the virgin part down pat. What if they didn't like her? What then?

What on earth is she doing in this provincial, back-water border town?

Hinata shakes her head and drains her cup of tea; the waiter, an attractive man with red hair, brings her a refill on her expensive, imported-directly-from-the-Tea-Country, top-o'-the-line, Lapsang Souchong tea. He is hitting on her, Hinata realizes, as she takes the cup with a stuttering t-t-thank you. But she doesn't encourage him to stay. Finally, he leaves, saying he can't stand the sight of a pretty young girl being sad, and the tea is on the house.

Ha. Pretty young girl indeed. Hinata stares at her reflection in the dark cup, all wide eyes and trembling lips. She takes a deep breath of the pine scented, full bodied tea, and it steadies her nerves. She takes the first sip, and it is bliss; it is chocolate and smoked meat and a dark, hoppy beer all at once. It is hot; the steam envelops her face as she drinks, and she thinks this, _this_ divine nectar otherwise known as tea, is the reason why the Tea Country is so aptly named. Happiness in the form of a ephemeral drink is hers. When she is finishes, the waiter pours her more. He says it brings him joy to put a smile on her face, and she stutters a garbled, unintelligible reply.

Left alone with her beverage, she inhales the fragrant steam once more; the undertones of pine make her think of her teammates. Shino, Kiba and Kurenai had caught up with her shortly after she had left the gates; she knew they would. They walked with her in silence for a long while. Even Kiba, who was usually an open-mouth-insert-foot kind of guy, was laconic. Surprisingly, it was Shino who broke the silence: "We understand, Hinata. Why? Because we are your friends."

Hinata stopped walking at that point; she stood stock still in the middle of the path, the three members of her surrogate family standing just behind her. Kiba put a hand on her shoulder. "Please let us know where you're going, Hinata-chan!" Akamaru barked an affirmative, and Kiba continued, softly, "We're worried about you."

Soon, her teammates circled around her, their eyes soft with understanding. They had seen her deteriorate over the past five years: at first, Hinata had channelled her disgruntled, disappointed energy into training. The department of accounting docked her pay many times for damage done to training posts; once, she had pummeled an entire rock-face of a nearby cliff into oblivion, and the boulders rolled onto a training field, destroying it. Perhaps it had been a silent invocation: _See, Naruto-kun? She's not the only one who can punch the earth until her hands bleed and the ground fractures._ But her pay had merely been docked, and nothing further on the matter had been said.

Eventually, destroying inanimate objects wasn't enough; but she had to get _stronger, stronger, stronger_, didn't she? Or else, what was she doing with herself? Who was she becoming stronger for? It was especially bad after the Hokage's lavish wedding. The whole town had been invited, and Hinata had stood amongst the drunk and careening guests with a tight smile and a dead look in her eyes, as if she were a taxidermic animal with its mouth pinned back in a feral grin.

After that, Naruto's face had been carved on the Hokage monument. It loomed large; his eyes always seemed to follow her, asking her silent questions she did not know the answers to. For a while, Hinata resolved to die in the line of duty while protecting Naruto; but since it was peace time, she never got to live out that dream, despite her fortuitous placement on ANBU. She felt like there was a song inside of her body that was trapped in her throat; she felt the fire in her heart die like a snuffed candle.

At night, she would idly finger the scar on her chest, where Pein had stabbed her: it was right over her heart. A centimeter lower, Sakura had said, and Hinata would have been dead.

She wished, sometimes, that Pein had been so kind; damn Rinnegan, should have been more accurate, could have at least aimed appropriately. That was the problem with ocular jutsu: you thought you could see everything, see through things and know things; but looks were deceiving. Seeing was believing but believing didn't imply veracity. She would silently curse that scar as she drifted off to sleep, and in the morning, she would contemplate the Hokage's huge head, looming over her like a grinning blimp, and the only thought that would ring in her head was _why why why?_

All these thoughts and memories echoed in Hinata's mind as she looked at her teammates, and in their eyes, she found understanding; it was like bathing in cool water on a hot day. She was soothed. She gave them all an impromptu group hug and whispered that she was taking a vacation in the Tea Country, and no, she didn't know when she would be back, but she would write. She promised.

It was mostly true, but it was the closest thing to a lie Hinata had ever told them. She didn't want anyone to know her whereabouts, not even her teammates. It felt better that way, she insisted to herself, though her stomach twisted as the white lies left her lips.

They had stood a while in the clearing, drinking in each other's presences, until Hinata insisted that they leave, before the goodbye broke her resolve. They flitted away like shadows, like fragments of memory. As Hinata walked on, free of the omnipresent gaze of the Hokage monument, she breathed a little easier. The silence was filled only with birdsong and the sunlight filtering in through the trees; Hinata thought about her new direction in life, and for the first time in years, she was satisfied. Not happy—she had given up on that—but satisfied.

Hinata raises her cup to her lips and smiles, thinking about the seven day long journey to this tiny town on the edge of Tea; here, with her black contact lenses covering her bleached eyes, she can almost feel like a normal human being. She is going to let her old life float away, like the evanescent steam in her tea cup, and she will find her fire again. Still smiling, she takes a long sip of tea, lowering the mug when she feels a presence sitting down beside her; she thinks it is probably the waiter, come to flirt with her again—

But it is not.

Hinata peers over the rim of her porcelain tea cup, and, startled, spits out hot tea onto _his_ shirt: she stares, tea dripping down her face like drool—very, _very_ expensive and tasty drool. Part of her mind remembers that it is impolite to stare, just like it is impolite to spit tea all over an acquaintance, but the rest of her brain is concerned with the fact that the man sitting across from her is dead. Or at least, he _was_ dead?

She had seen him die with her own, two, irrefutable, Byakugan-enhanced eyes in the last war. His blood and guts and flesh had been shredded by Naruto's rasen-shuriken; he had exploded, and an instant later, Sakura had crumbled the earth below his feet, so that all the little itty bitty bits of Uchiha Sasuke had been buried under an avalanche of rock.

But now, sitting across from her, is Sasuke, replete with pale skin, dark hair, cool, cold eyes…though the dark rings under his eyes are new. He looks like a more sallow and haunted version of the man she had seen die on the battlefield, all those many years ago.

"You look like you've just seen a ghost," he smirks; she remembers now, he used to smirk all the time, back at the academy; the action is familiar and _unnerving_ at the same time. The awkwardness increases as Hinata realizes that this is the first time Sasuke has _ever _actually spoken to her_._ Which is funny, because they have known each other their whole lives, but had simply never interacted, not even to say: "Hello," or, "Nice weather, isn't it?"

"I-I-I…" Hinata stutters. Somehow, she manages to rest her cup on the polished maple table without breaking the exquisite blue-patterned porcelain, though she does tremble; she spills some of the dark tea on the counter.

It can't be him. Can it? What if it isn't him? But then again, what if it **is**? Suddenly, she blurts out, "I left white peonies on your grave, every year!" She doesn't know why she says this, but it is true.

Sasuke looks at her as if she is insane, and then barks with laughter; the sound scares her. "Peonies? Tch. That's what they have at weddings."

Hinata feels her cheeks flaming; but she is not a shy, push-over any more, despite her undying propensity for stuttering. She has faced down Akatsuki members and zombies by the scores; she convinces herself that one, theoretically dead Uchiha does not scare her. "I p-picked them b-because they s-s-symbolize c-compassion." She gulps audibly before adding, "And n-nobility." Hinata looks down at the table top and taps her finger idly in a puddle of cold tea.

"Hn." The Uchiha leans forward on his elbows and rests his chin in his hands; for some reason, the gesture reminds Hinata of a panther waiting to pounce, and a cold sweat breaks out along her back. "Listen Hinata," Sasuke begins in a droll voice, the humor of the situation—how they are arguing over which flower arrangement she has left on his grave marker for the past five years— has put him in a strange mood. He snaps, "I didn't just come here to talk about fucking _flowers_."

Unbidden, Hinata reaches out _slowly, slowly,_ and touches his skin; it is cool, but it is not stone cold. So. He is not a zombie. Just to be sure, Hinata activates her Byakugan, and indeed, it really is Sasuke, with his lightening-like chakra and a palpable darkness hovering around him like a cloak. She retracts her hand and sits back down, _slowly, slowly_. "You're really alive?" She means it to sound like a statement, but it comes out as a question.

Sasuke ignores her. "That temple you want to apply to: it's a cult run by some crazy old man. They sacrifice a virgin every year to the so-called 'goddess.'" He looks at her piercingly before adding, "They draw lots."

"Lots?" she asks, confused.

"For who is going to be sacrificed," he says, as if explaining something obvious to an especially stupid child.

"Oh," Hinata responds, still in shell-shock. And then: "Wait. How do you…?"

It's an unfinished question, but he understands. "I've been following you," he responds simply, as if it is the most ordinary thing in the world. He goes on to explain how, for the past year, he's been lurking around Konoha, just watching people go about their daily lives: Naruto and Sakura's pink-headed children, the ANBU winking in and out of sight, the new Hokage head carved into the mountainside. He says Naruto's head isn't a fair facsimile; it doesn't look idiotic enough for it to be true to life, and Hinata chuckles nervously.

"You see," he continues, "I found a way to elude Naruto's sensory technique. I simply hide my chakra signature behind yours. The dobe is so busy avoiding you—ignoring how you are feeling— that you're like a safe buffer zone between me and the Toad Moron."

Hinata blinks; the sick sad truth is becoming clear. "So you've been shadowing me? So no one can sense you?" she squeaks. It sounds insane. A dead man has been stalking her while she stalks Naruto so that Naruto will not pick up on Sasuke's presence.

Sasuke nods. "But enough of that," he counters, as if _that_ were nothing out of the ordinary.

He wants to tell her something important, but she breaks in, "For how long?" Her voice trembles; she is appalled, and she feels sick to her stomach.

"For a year." He shrugs. "I never watched anything inappropriate, like when you changed your clothes or showered—unlike _someone_ I know." He blinks in a suggestive fashion at this, and Hinata blushes red, fire-fucking-engine red, because he definitely _knows_ that _she's_ watched Naruto undress, and more than a few times.

"Oh!" she cheeps, at a lack for words.

"Anyway, Hyuga, I have a proposition for you." The undead Uchiha holds out his hand to her, and Hinata, stunned by the events of the last five minutes, meekly puts her hand in his. "I have a job for you. Something a lot better than becoming a sacrificial lamb for some religious cult," he sneers. "I need you to kill me."

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><p><em>an lol, guess this is what they call dark humor:)_

**_In exchange for your reviews, I offer my undying love and affec_**_**tion! xoxoxo!**_


	3. Murder the Murderer

_a/n _

_First note: when I published last night, ff net was being all craaaaaaaazy; so sorry for the wait! Thanks goodness though, seems like everything is working fine today!_

_Sorry about posting this at the butt-end of the weekend; but hey, I did post on the weekend, as per my promise!_

_Thanks so much for all your warm reviews; they make me smile so:) And also, thanks for all the alerts and subscriptions and what not; I don't think I've ever had so many subscriptions for a fic! Y'all must really like SasuHin:)_

_Special super thanks to my beta **Ninjakittee** for her beta'ing magic:)_

_Things have been a bit on the busy side here; and it occurs to me that I have two fics I haven't updated in over a month and a half (facepalms) and I have two gift fics that I need to write before X-Mass (facepalms); in short, it might be two weeks until I update this fic! Just FYI! Don't worry though, I love this fic and will definitely stay on top of it:)_

_Okay, ready and enjoy:)_

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><p>Chapter 3<p>

**Murder the Murderer**

"Anyway, Hyuga, I have a proposition for you."

Hinata's mind whirls as they exit the tea shop— a p-p-proposition? Oh dear gods! Did he want her to help him restart his clan? Unfortunately, Sasuke wasn't her type: for one, he wasn't blond enough. Or tan enough. And his eyes definitely weren't blue enough…

But Hinata has no more time to think, because Sasuke continues in a firm, almost mocking voice: "I have a job for you. Something a lot better than becoming a sacrificial lamb for some religious cult. I need you to kill me."

At first, Hinata feels relief. "Oh thank gods, you don't want me to have your children!" she gushes. And then—"Wait a minute. Y-Y-You want me to w-w-what?"

"Not want, _need_," Sasuke replies slowly, as if it would help Hinata understand if he enunciates every word clearly and dilatorily. "I need you to kill me."

"B-B-But y-you a-are a-already d-d-dead! O-Or y-you w-w-w-were!" she manages to say as the Uchiha continues to drag her through the small, dirty streets. Ignoring her, he buys a bag of cinnamon raisin mochi and hands the treats to Hinata.

"I know they're your favorite," he replies to her quizzical look, and Hinata blushes; it seems Sasuke knows all kinds of factoids about her.

Hinata is many things, and over her short life, she has gotten used to a myriad of weird scenarios: for one, she has grown accustomed to Hanabi claiming the title of Hyuga heiress, even though Hinata is the eldest. She has gotten used to her father ignoring her and to her new, equally aloof stepmother. She has even become comfortable with methodically and obsessively stalking the Hokage-sama; and she is okay with the fact that Naruto is married to Sakura, and his three, pink-headed children (when they _should_ all have either blond or black hair).

But Hinata would not— nor would she ever— get used to having her own stalker.

It sucks. It is _unnerving._ It is just plain _wrong._

(Not that this makes her reconsider her own surveillance of Naruto, but still…)

Sasuke is standing still in the street, and he is staring at her; Hinata realizes that he is waiting for her to eat the mochi. But what if it is poisoned? What if she chokes on puffed rice pastry and dies? What if she hopes that she _will_ die from eating the dessert, and it becomes a self fulfilling prophesy? She makes a pained, choking sound, and under his glare, she hesitantly puts a square of mochi in her mouth. It is delicious, or at least it would be, if there wasn't a dead man watching her chew it. Hinata's mouth goes dry. It is hard to swallow down the mochi, though she manages, somehow.

Sasuke takes Hinata by the elbow, as if she is a mannequin, incapable of movement by herself; as if she is a pet dog, who must be lead on a leash. He sits her down on a park bench, and the wind whips an errant oak leaf on to her black leggings; she lets the leaf rest there, and enjoys how the bright yellow juxtaposes against her black clothes. She stares at it listlessly as the Uchiha begins his soliloquy.

"You see," he says tightly after a long pause, "I have a problem. I can't seem to die."

Hinata's head turns towards him slowly. "How…?"

He seems to divine her question. "After the last war, I was, for all intents and purposes, dead. This is what happened…" And as he speaks, his eyes glaze over, like the full moon hidden behind dark clouds. And Hinata closes her eyes, and she lets his words roll over her like waves, and she confuses past and present and sees as he speaks.

There is Madara, all orange mask and an animal look in his ridiculously hax'd eyes; and here is Naruto, his long black and red Sage cloak fluttering in the wind, his eyes rimmed with orange. Sasuke merely watches as the loud-mouth, bull-headed blond and a horde of toads seal Madara away to Mount Myoboku. There, Madara is chained above a pit of boiling oil for all eternity; every morning, a toad will gouge out his eyes with barbed kunai and pour boiling oil over his skin. Hinata is reminded of Prometheus and shudders; it does not sound pleasant.

After the Big Bad Uchiha is sealed away, it's time for the epic fight they had all been waiting for: the Team Seven Battle Royale. Except that Sasuke doesn't give a rat's ass anymore.

"I found the two elders," he explains, his fingers clenching, unclenching, then contracting once more. "Before I slit their throats, like pigs, I got the last bit of information I needed." Hinata shudders again, thinking about _pigs,_ _oh gods, why?_ But Sasuke explains: what Itachi had never told him. What Madara had never revealed.

What exactly was the infamous coup d'état the Uchiha had planned, all those many years ago, when Sasuke had been just a tender academy student? "They were going to murder every man, woman and child in Konoha," Sasuke remarks in a monotone. And then there was Itachi, and an almost self-fulfilling prophesy, and the Uchiha themselves were sacrificed; but to what god, to what greater good, Sasuke does not know. However, it is implied in his tone, in the way he hunches over his knees, that he believes the Uchiha clan got what they deserved.

"The fight went out of me," he says simply. "When Naruto and Sakura came at me," all fists flaming and glowing and mouths screaming _Sasu-keeeeeeee!_— Hinata remembers and Sasuke continues, "I didn't flinch. I didn't _Chidori-Sharingan-Amaterasu-Tsukiyomi-_or-_Susanoo_. I wanted to die," he states without any feeling, and Hinata can just picture it all over again: the looks of horror on Naruto and Sakura's faces when Sasuke doesn't fight back, and it's too late to withdraw, to turn back the blazing fists, and Sasuke's body explodes under the weight of extraordinary jutsu.

"Imagine my surprise," Sasuke remarks drolly, "when a year later, I am laying cold and naked on the battle field in one solid piece." Hinata surmises from his tone that Sasuke is less than pleased at this miracle. Sasuke goes on to describe how he has tried to throw himself off of cliffs, to gouge out his own eternal Mangekyou Sharingan with a kunai, how he blows himself up repeatedly, all to no avail.

This is why Madara is sealed, and not killed. Those with the eternal Mangekyou cannot die; their eyes cannot be removed; their limbs cannot be severed. Sasuke glowers. Why didn't Naruto and Sakura realize that tearing him asunder and burying him in the earth was but a temporary solution? Now, he is a man who yearns for sleep, but his eyes are eternally pried open to the wheeling of the sun.

Hinata stares down at the yellow leaf in her lap, then spins the stem in her fingers, twirling the foliage idly. She asks what he has been doing, then, for the past four years—b-b-besides trying to commit a Sisyphean suicide.

Sasuke shrugs. "At first, I contemplated destroying the Leaf." He had originally thought, since he had the rest of eternity to _fuck shit up_, that he could start with Konoha; but that plan was short lived. He had lost his taste for it. So instead, he spent three years sightseeing, traveling, sleeping with lots of women, drinking sake and finding himself in gutters the next morning: in short, three years of debauchery.

Sasuke pauses, and Hinata cannot decipher what he is thinking. She almost asks what he did for the last year, but catches herself. The answer is obvious: he was stalking the village stalker to stalk the village. So instead she asks, "W-W-Why did you come back to Konoha?"

And Sasuke shrugs. Maybe he doesn't know himself, he says, but he saw all the sickening smiles and the peacetime and gods the memorial service for himself, with the Hokage weeping like a big fat baby and Sakura behind him with a Prozac-glazed look in her eyes.

And then there was Hinata, who also stood on the edges of Konoha, looking in on lives that were closed to her. He saw her bitterness, her kindness swallowed up like cream turning murky brown in black coffee. At first, Sasuke says, she was just a means to an end, a way to commit espionage from the safety of Hinata's giant cloud of misery. But at some point, Sasuke realizes that Hinata has stopped being the means and has become an end unto herself.

"You're just like me," he says, but Hinata doesn't buy it; she does not come from a long line of homicidal maniacs, she has not lived a life of revenge and violence and betrayal, of dying and becoming undead. But Sasuke continues, "And you're perfect. Only you can help me." In his voice there is a hint of a question, a hint of _please_, and since Hinata has nothing else on her plate at the moment—she does not want to go back to Konoha, nor does she want to become a sacrificial offering to a nebulous goddess— she says yes.

She likes to think that she says yes because she is kind, because Sasuke is suffering and she can help him. But she knows it is a lie. She knows it is because she cannot think of a reason to say no; because she has always been a push-over.

"Good," he says without emphasis. "We'll head out right away to one of Orochimaru's old hide-outs. Your Byakugan will be useful."

She merely nods her head and stands; the yellow leaf falls from her lap onto the ground, and they exit the village, whose name Hinata cannot remember.

Later, Hinata thinks, she will regret this. She will regret the yellow leaf, drinking tea, eating mochi, and saying _yes_ when she means _no;_ but for now, she is too stupefied to do anything but walk after a man who would probably be better off dead.

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><p><em>an hope you liked it:) Will update again in about two weeks; until then, feel free to check out "Song of Aether", which I also recently updated!_

_reviews= my undying love and affection! xoxoxo!_


	4. Nagi Island

_a/n first off, merry chrismakwansica, and festivus for the rest of us! Whatever holiday you do or don't celebrate, I hope you enjoy it! I personally plan on making hella egg nog, nom nom!_

_My in-laws are going to be in town this week, so not sure when I'll get to update again: just to be on the safe side, I'll say two weeks. That way, if I do manage to post next weekend, I'll exceed your expectations!_

_This chapter is best enjoyed while listening to the album "Ring" by Glasser, especially the first track called "Apply." You can listen to it for free on grooveshark at: _

**_grooveshark. com/playlist/Glasser+Ring/64386482 _**

_minus the annoying space of course. You might need to add an h t t p in front there, but it should work without:)_

_Special super duper thanks to my beta, **Uchiha.S**, who rocks my socks:)_

_~(^.^~) ~(^.^)~ (~^.^)~_

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><p>Chapter 4<p>

**Nagi Island**

_I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger, traveling through this world of woe; _

_but there's no sickness, no toil or danger, in that bright world, to which I go. _

_~Wayfaring Stranger, traditional_

Hinata does not ask Sasuke where they are going, nor does she question his silent orders; she walks behind him, staring at the ground. She thinks of things to say to break the awkward silence, but the words always die in her throat.

Eventually she gathers enough courage to stare at his back and simply _thinks_ questions at him. Who is this man? She knows his name, and his affiliation with Team Seven, but beyond that, Uchiha Sasuke is truly a mystery. Hinata's lips purse; her fingers lace themselves behind her pack straps. Why does Sasuke want to die when he has been granted eternal life? Is life so empty for him that he would prefer to die _again_?

As if in response to her thoughts, Sasuke shoots her a look from over his shoulder; it is as if he can _hear_ her thoughts, even without using his doujutsu. Hinata squeaks and looks back down at the ground; nothing is said, and Hinata does not even dare to think for quite some time.

They travel for three long, silent days. Hinata thinks that she may possibly lose her mind. She is a shy person by nature, true, but she is also gregarious in her own quiet way. Starved of any social interaction, she begins to feel like a plant deprived of sunlight. So she clears her throat and forces herself to say, "Uchiha-s-s-san?" She bites her lip, and curses her sibilant stutter.

Sasuke, who is walking ahead of her, slows his pace until they are side by side. "Hn?"

Hinata takes a deep breath. "W-W-Where…?"

"Hn."

With that, Sasuke pulls forward once again, and Hinata's mouth is left gaping. She curses herself; she believes it is her own inability to articulate full sentences that has raised Sasuke's ire. Isn't this the very reason why she left Konoha? To over come her atrocious stutter, to create her own destiny? Instead, she is letting a walking-zombie lead her to Kami only knows where! The _least_ he could do would be to include her in his travel plans.

With newfound determination, Hinata states, "Uchiha-san. Where are we g-going?" She is pleased that she only stutters once.

He smirks at this, withdraws a map from inside of his vest, and tosses it over his shoulder to the kunoichi. She catches the scroll with ninja acuity and unravels it slowly as she continues to walk, for Sasuke has not stopped. As she peruses the map, her pace remains steady, but her expression grows quizzical. "Nagi Island?"

"We're almost to the port," Sasuke replies, laconic as ever. Sure enough, in a few hours, they reach the coast. It is gray and overcast by the shore; the mist seems to hang heavy, a suspended rain-filled cloud. Hinata has never been to this part of Wave Country, a peninsula that juts out from the border with Fire; it is as unremarkable as dirty chewing gum stuck to the bottom of one's shoe.

Soon, they pay for a small fishing vessel to take them to Nagi Island. They board the dodgy-looking boat, its red paint peeling, its oars well worn from pushing through the sea. "You two married?" the fisherman asks, his well-muscled arms heaving the oars through the water. Hinata turns as red as the setting sun, which is glinting up through the fog and bloodying the thin horizon; Sasuke smirks.

"Yes. I'm visiting my parents," Sasuke replies suavely.

Hinata feels sick; she leans over the side of the boat and heaves up her meager lunch. When she is done wiping the vomit from her cheek, she sees Sasuke out of the corner of her eye; his scowl makes her cheeks burn hotter than the bile gathering at the back of her throat.

When they finally reach the island, Hinata is still green in the face, while the pale, blue twilight has fully faded into black night. The full moon glows eerily through the patchy clouds, and its filtered light suffuses the sea with silver. The fisherman anchors his boat and makes his way towards town. He calls a goodbye over his shoulder, wishing them a safe rest of their journey; he adds that Hinata shouldn't be so scared of her in-laws. He assumes that is why she vomited before: how wrong he is.

Hinata chews the inside of her cheek and looks up at Sasuke, whose back is turned towards her. He is gazing out at the water, at the heavy moon looking into the mirror of the sea. Before she can stop herself, Hinata blurts out, "Why did you say that?"

"Say what?" Sasuke answers slowly, without turning around.

"About your p-p-parents…"

Sasuke simply shrugs. He spins around, walking forward into town without warning; Hinata follows him with a squeak. _Why am I even here? Why am I following a lunatic vampire like some lost puppy? What the hell is wrong with me?_ Despite her tumultuous mind, outwardly she is silent. She follows Sasuke to a noodle shop, she lets him order her dinner, and she stuffs soba into her face. Her cheeks puff up like a starving hamster gorging himself on bread. And all the while her mind is humming _why why why?_

She cannot answer any of these unbidden questions, except to say that she is transfixed; she is stuck in a genjutsu and _she cannot get out._ She is drowning in Sasuke's presence; he is a whirlpool and she is an abandoned rowboat, spiraling closer and closer to the vortex, to oblivion. The bland noodles catch in her throat.

As if he can sense her inner turmoil, Sasuke's voice breaks the quiet. "I told him," Sasuke muses aloud, "because if all goes according to plan, I _will_ be visiting my parents."

Hinata chokes on her noodles. After a few minutes of sputtering, she drinks a glass of water and leans her head in her hands. "I'm sorry…w-what…?"

"I was just answering your question," Sasuke replies evenly, his chopsticks twirling noodles with deft movements.

Hinata blinks, and she processes what he has just said. _Oh. He is going to die soon. He is going to meet his parents…_ The macabre truth hits her like a kunai to the heart: how awful this all is. They sit in silence, and Hinata half-heartedly pushes her noodles around in her plate until they disintegrate in a starchy, congealing blob.

"Sasuke," she ventures timidly as they leave the restaurant, "I-I…I…"

"Spit it out."

Hinata takes a deep breath. "I don't understand why you want to d-die." She wants to add that eternal life is the dream of philosophers; fountains of youth are the goals of explorers; to throw away his life so recklessly after his miraculous reanimation seems ungrateful and foolish. Perhaps it would be wiser to live and enjoy life? But these thoughts cannot be uttered.

Sasuke's black eyes bore through her; her heart beat increases, and for a moment, it looks like Sasuke is going to smack her. But just as Hinata flinches away from him, he throws his head back and laughs; the loud barking sound frightens Hinata. When his laughter stops as abruptly as it began, and the Uchiha regards her once again, her blood freezes like a shallow pool in winter.

"The Uchiha don't deserve to live. I thought you understood that," he snaps, his tone as icy as the blood frozen in her veins. Without another word, he strides back to the beach. Hinata scurries after him and wordlessly, they set up camp.

She takes the first watch. With lachrymose eyes, she watches the full moon rise to its zenith; the fog clears, and the ocean roils with silver waves. It does not matter that Hinata's eyes are as wide and as white as the moon; tonight, she understands that she does not see a thing.

When she gently rouses Sasuke for his watch, she has a feeling that he has not slept at all. "Get some rest," he barks at her. "We leave for Orochimaru's hide-out at dawn."

"Y-Yes, Uchiha-san." She slides down into her sleeping bag, wondering what horrors will await her in the morning, and why she is agreeing to confront them; for they are not her horrors to unearth. And when she drifts into sleep, she has nightmares of what they will find at Orochimaru's base: body parts preserved in jelly, or jars of formaldehyde; rusted knives still caked in ancient blood, hollow skulls and rotten bones. When Sasuke's rough hands force her awake, she does not feel well-rested.

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><p><em>an thanks so much for reading and holiday hugs!_

_I'm going to turn this into an original story at some point, so your feedback would be super duper appreciated!_

xoxoxo!


	5. Junk in the Junkyard

_a/n welcome back everyone, and sorry for the wait! Here is the new chappy, at long last! Thanks for all your nice reviews, and special thanks to **MelanisticLeopard **for beta'ing:)_

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><p>Chapter Five<p>

**Junk in the Junkyard**

_When I'm dead and buried, don't you weep after me, _

_oh I don't want you to weep after me; _

_Sailing on the ocean, don't you weep after me, _

_oh I don't want you to weep after me._

_~Don't You Weep After Me, Traditional_

When he brings her to an old, abandoned junkyard on the island, Hinata is confused.

"Activate your dojutsu," he commands; she does so without hesitation.

Her white eyes sweep the junkyard, all broken bric-a-brac, rotten wood, spools of corroded wire, destroyed bits of houses— broken windows and molding plaster. She forces more chakra into her eyes and looks deeper, underneath the underneath, and gasps.

"There's a whole network of underground caverns!" She is confused— who in their right mind builds a subterranean lair on an _island_? Wouldn't the damn thing _flood_ at regular intervals from the tides? But then, Orochimaru was far from ever being in his right mind…

"Entrance," Sasuke commands, the one word encapsulating his desires.

The veins around Hinata's eyes bulge as she hurries to find it. There it is! Under a pile of rusting metal and what looks like a heap of molding bones. It takes them a quarter of an hour to remove all the garbage, slimy rugs and crumbling rubble, but finally, they find a seamless piece of metal at the very bottom.

"Stand back," Sasuke murmurs, and Hinata jumps away, the sound of a thousand chirping birds filling the air.

"A-Are you sure you should Ch-Ch-Chidori metal—" she shouts, but the screeching of the lightening jutsu drowns her out. His fist rises like a jagged silver sun, then plummets to the earth like a comet, leaving blinding trails in its wake. A huge explosion, all argent effulgence and smoke blooms over the garbage heap, and Hinata is thrown back by the force of it.

She thanks Kami that she lands on the slimy rugs; they are disgusting, but they break her fall; they are far more comfortable than rusty, jagged metal would have been.

"Uchiha? Uchiha-san? Uchiha-saaaaaaaaan!" Hinata rises and searches for Sasuke. She does not see him; all that is left in his place is a gaping, smoldering hole where the plate of metal once was. "Uchiha-san?" she whispers.

"Why didn't you tell me it was a bad idea to Chidori metal?" he barks from somewhere behind her, and Hinata jumps ten feet into the air.

"I'm s-so s-s-sorry—" she stutters as she turns around, but she does not see Sasuke anywhere.

"Down here," he states dryly, and Hinata looks down—

And she screams.

"Oh Kami! Your head! Your _head_!" Hinata proceeds to scream, blood-curdling, mind-numbing screeches that rend the air and deafen the ears.

Sasuke's charred head is severed from his body; his blackened teeth are displayed in a droll grimace. "Woman. Shut up," he orders, and Hinata's screams fade to whimpers. "Find the pieces of my body; the regeneration process will go faster if all my components are in one place."

Hinata's eyes are as wide as the broken bay windows that Sasuke's bloody head is perched upon; she is shaking. But Sasuke spears her with a glare, and that frightens her into action.

Hinata continues to tremble as she gathers the so-called _components_ of Uchiha Sasuke: one blackened arm, splinters of his leg, a roasted mess of organs—she tries not to identify which organs are which—until she has found most of what she _assumes_ are his body parts. By the time she returns to the talking head, it already looks less black; a pale pink skin tone is taking the place of burned flesh. Hinata unceremoniously dumps the broken and burned body parts in front of the head, not because she is disrespectful, but because she is more terrified than she has ever been in her whole life, and terror makes her clumsy. Some perverse part of her mind observes that she is like a priestess offering a sacrifice of seared offal to the God-of-Severed-Heads, and the thought makes her gorge rise.

She has seen zombies, yes; she has even _killed_ her fair share of zombies, if killing is a proper term for disabling bodies that are already dead. But she has never had to gather up all the various and sundry pieces of a dead body so that it can _reattach and regenerate itself._ Nor has she ever taken orders from a disembodied head before. Hinata is thankful that she did not eat much that morning, because she surely would have vomited it up by now.

It takes Uchiha Sasuke the better part of the day to regenerate all his cells; well, to be fair, he's not the one doing it precisely—his body reassembles of its own accord. At some point, Hinata gets over her nausea and watches in mute horror as bloody blackened bits of the Uchiha traitor seem to crawl out of the rubble and reattach themselves to his body: scraps of flesh, splintered bits of bone, rolling teeth. A knee joint dislodges itself from under the wreckage and hurdles through the air towards Sasuke, almost braining poor Hinata in the process.

And all the while, Sasuke's red eyes glow with the complex pattern of the Mangekyo Sharingan; black and red swirls like a vortex, like a demonic whirlpool. As daylight fades, his two eyes cast an eerie, rutilant light over the junkyard as his body reconstructs itself slowly, slowly. Hinata finally turns away from him and regards the stars winking into existence in the frozen sky, wishing she could make sense of her wretched fate from the far-off constellations.

The waning gibbous moon rises over the ocean like a lopsided wheel of cheese, and finally, Sasuke rises and commands Hinata to find his clothes. Apparently he is stark naked: she starts at this revelation. At some point, it became too dark to watch Sasuke's body regenerate, and Hinata is glad, because if she had to watch Sasuke's _family jewels_ glue themselves back on to his crotch, she might have just _died_ right then and there. Thank Kami for the darkness! There is not enough moonlight to _see_ anything unsavory; or so she thinks.

Thankfully, they had left their packs outside of the junkyard— otherwise, Hinata is sure they would have been incinerated in the blast—and Hinata runs to retrieve his garments. She blushes when she returns, for she sees him silhouetted at _just the wrong angle _by the ghastly moon, an angle by which she can admire the length and girth of Sasuke Junior.

She cannot help it. Being the village stalker was once her occupation, and now, she finds herself ogling. Incidentally, she realizes that Sasuke's package is much, _much_ bigger than anything Naruto possesses—

"Hyuga!"

Hinata is broken out of her trance by his booming voice. Trembling, she casts her eyes downwards, creeps forward, and thrusts Sasuke's clothing at him. He grumbles something along the lines of, _damn reanimation jutsu, fucking eyes can reassemble _flesh_ but not _clothes_…_ Hinata blushes hotter than the melted metal at the mouth of the hideout, which is still red and smoldering against the cool night air.

Once Sasuke is dressed, he mutters, "Follow me."

Hinata, who hitherto had been staring at the ground, squeaks and stumbles after him in the darkness before activating her Byakugan. Before them, the entrance to Orochimaru's hideout gapes like a huge, smoking maw; as they enter, Hinata has the feeling that she is being swallowed alive.

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><p><em>Thanks for reading!<em>

_Reviews= my undying love and affection:)_


	6. Tomb

_Hey all, and welcome back! _

_Thanks for all your kind reviews and PM's; they make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like I've just swallowed a baby duckling:) _

_ Special thanks to **Uchiha.S, **my amazing and splendid beta, who broke out her cyber taser every time I overused and abused the semi-colon. Poor semi-colon. I'm sorry I hurt you *sobs*._

_Anyway, things are picking up a bit in my personal life: between being busy with projects, I am also house hunting. I will do my best to update every 1-2 weeks, and I apologize in advance if it takes longer. Such is life. If only I could get paid to write fanfic, then I could do it all day long! Wouldn't that be nice..._

_Note to my readers for **"Song of Aether"**: I'll do my best to get the next chapter up soon! If I must choose between rushing a chapter, or taking more time to post a perfect(ish) chapter, I'll always choose the latter. So sorry for the wait, next chappy will be up as soon as I can manage it:)_

_Enough of my babbling-enjoy! :)_

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><p>Ch.6<p>

**Tomb**

_What is this, I can't see? Icy hands taking over me; _

_My name is death and I excel, I open the doors to heaven and hell. _

_~Oh Death, Traditional_

The acrid smell of burning metal assaults her senses. Though she does not touch anything as she steps forward, the heat radiates from the smoldering entrance, scalding her skin. She passes through quickly, lest she be burned, scrambling after Sasuke who is already far ahead of her.

As they climb down the wet stairs, they leave the scant light cast by the moon: all is dark. It smells like mold, like brackish water and decaying flesh, and Hinata is overcome by nausea. Sasuke's commanding voice rings throughout the stone cavern; it reverberates off the narrow walls and seems to come from all directions at once.

"Find the vault."

"O-Okay!" she squeaks, though she is not sure exactly what she is looking for, outside of the fact that it is a _vault _of some kind. She takes a steadying breath and focuses her Byakugan, seeing what she did not before: they are at a nexus of pathways. At least twenty different hallways diverge from their current location, and as Hinata strains her all-seeing eyes, she realizes that many directions end in dead-ends, or lethal traps. She has heard of Konoha nin who traipsed through Orochimaru's other hideouts, horror stories of men trapped in mazes, never to return. And worse, those that _did_ return— mangled men with missing limbs, their eyes glazed with terror as though trapped in an eternal genjutsu.

Hinata muses that Orochimaru is like an ancient pharaoh with myriad tombs, each catacomb laced with curses, treasures, poisons, and a thick, consuming darkness. Though the master himself is long dead, his labyrinths wait like live webs to trap the unwary. Hinata shivers. But sensing Sasuke's rising impatience, she forces her eyes to continue scouring the caverns and damp, dripping hallways for the nebulous vault.

"It is there," Hinata finally whispers, "down this passageway, and then to the left at the second intersection."

Sasuke nods. "Excellent. Thank you, Hyuga-san." Hinata flushes at the praise, her whole body going warm. His red, swirling eyes regard her for a moment, and she is caught up in the rutilant glow. His face is bathed in crimson, his pale skin illuminated from the red moons of his eyes, and she thinks, _He is beautiful…_

It only lasts a moment; Sasuke turns and the spell is broken. She hastily follows him down the dank corridor, choking back a shriek when icy, putrid water drips onto her face from the ceiling.

Just as Hinata has said, they turn left and come to a metal vault. Hinata estimates that it is about as big as a house, and the combination dial itself is about as large as Hinata's body. Curiously enough, she cannot see through the container. The walls must be made of a chakra-resistant metal, or are insulated against those with all-seeing eyes.

"Give me your hand, Hyuga-san," Sasuke instructs, and without questioning his orders, she does so. His skin is dry, and cool. She tries not to marvel at his calluses, at the strength coiled within each finger.

Sasuke places her hand in the center of the large dial, then covers her small, moist hand with his own. "Concentrate your chakra here," he orders, and then she _feels_ the electric current of his own chakra flowing though her hand. She nods, and the lines of her face are set in grim determination. Soon, her own chakra flows along the river of their combined energy. His chakra is crackling and powerful, lightening and ozone and exhilaration; and Hinata's life-force is water, the sweeping currents swirl and are electrified under Sasuke's palm.

Her whole body tingles with his energy, from the tips of her glowing fingers to the soles of her feet; for the first time in a long time, she feels _alive:_ the song of chakra flows through her veins and out of her fingers. Giddy, she forces her chakra to focus, willing the combination lock to _open_— because she is powerful, and she expects nature to _obey _her.

There is a surge of power from their joined hands, and the metal face of the monolithic vault glows blue. Finally, there is a click. The dial turns, as if of its own volition, and the door to the vault opens slowly with the shrill creak of its hinges.

Hinata pants softly with exertion, and when Sasuke removes his hand from hers, she feels cold. "Good chakra control," he murmurs, then beckons for her to follow him inside. Heat blooms across her cheeks, and she hopes that he cannot see her blush in the darkness (though of course, he can). Hinata focuses her Byakugan, even though she is low on chakra. She isn't sure what she was expecting to find here— bones, skulls, artifacts, weapons?— but what is inside the vault defies all expectations.

The metal walls are lined with scrolls and books; it is a vast library, and the shelves seem to go on forever. Sasuke appears to know what he's looking for; he strides with confidence to a long, endless shelf towards the back. Hinata's enhanced eyes see the symbol of the Uchiha clan embossed in the metal shelving and she nods her head; this must be a cache of Orochimaru's research. Might there be a shelf dedicated to the Hyuga as well?

But she does not have time to research her own family. Sasuke points to the endless row of scrolls and orders, "Look for anything pertaining to the Mangekyo Sharingan."

Hinata mumbles an affirmative and scans the scrolls with her Byakugan. There is quite a bit pertaining to the Mangekyo, and towards the end of the shelf, she finds a few texts on the metamorphosis of the Eternal Mangekyo into the Rinnegan. She hands those to Sasuke right away, and he nods his head in appreciation.

For the first time in a long time, Hinata is happy, though she is not sure why.

When they finally leave the hideout, it is almost noon outside. The sun burns Hinata's strained, sensitive eyes. "Rest," Sasuke commands once they leave the junkyard. Hinata is all too happy to do so under an old oak tree. She closes her eyes to the harsh light and gives herself up to the soothing darkness. When she finally opens them again, the gibbous moon shines in a clear sky.

"Sasuke?" she whispers, her voice hoarse and hesitant. When there is no answer, she activates her Byakugan and finds him perched in the tree above her, like a crow, like a harbinger. She funnels chakra into her feet and walks up the tree. "Sasuke?" she ventures again, her voice hardly louder than the wind sighing through the dry leaves.

"There's a jutsu I need you to learn," he replies in a gravelly voice, tossing her a scroll. She catches it with deft fingers and unrolls it against the trunk of the tree. She gasps, to which Sasuke merely responds, "You will kill me when the sun rises."

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><p><em>an thanks for reading! Will update soon._

_Buddha says: reviews create good karma!_


	7. Sucks to be the Sucker

**Chapter 7:**** Sucks to be the Sucker**

_Who'll rock the cradle, who'll sing the song?_

_Who'll rock the cradle when I'm gone?_

_I'll rock the cradle, I'll sing the song,_

_I'll rock the cradle when you're gone._

_~Rock the Cradle, traditional_

"Uchiha-san," she manages through chattering teeth, "I-I can't!"

"Tch. Isn't that why you came with me? I need you to—"

"I know!" Hinata squeaks; with horror, she realizes that she has just _interrupted_ him. She continues tremulously, "I-I am not able to d-do such a high-level medical j-jutsu!"

Sasuke suspires slowly. "I see. Who can?"

Hinata gulps before replying, "Ah…only Tsunade-sama or…" _Or Sakura_, she wants to say, but the words die on her lips.

Sasuke seems to know what she is thinking. "Or _Sakura_, is that it?" Hinata nods, too tongue-tied to elaborate. "Fine. We kidnap Lady Tsunade in the morning."

Hinata's mouth opens and closes, then gapes opens once more. "What?" she finally rasps.

"In the morning, we'll head towards Konoha. To kidnap Tsunade," he reiterates.

Hinata stares at him in disbelief, but when he catches her gaze with his red eyes, she lowers her head in assent. He orders her to go to sleep; she nearly falls out of the tree as she leaps back down to the ground.

Kidnap Lady Tsunade? That would be suicide. Though the retired Hokage is elderly, Hinata thinks it foolhardy to fuck with such a powerful woman: a kunoichi who, with her bare hands, can punch holes through one's body as if it is made of soft cheese. Although Hinata supposes that _Sasuke_ won't have to worry about Tsunade perforating his guts, what with his regeneration "problem."

_Hinata_ is the one who has to worry.

And worry Hinata does. She does not sleep another wink, cowering in her sleeping bag until dawn's rosy fingers pull back the velvet curtain of night. Sasuke leaps down from the tree, falling like a ripe fruit and landing on the ground with a thud. "Rise," he mutters, and Hinata packs her bag with haste. He does not allow her the time to make her morning cup of tea, but she does not complain.

As they walk towards the port, Hinata somehow manages to blurt out: "Uchiha-san—do you not s-sleep?" She cannot help herself from asking. It is a question that has been bubbling up inside of her for a long time.

"Tch. Do you ever shut up?"

Hinata is quiet the rest of the way to the port.

* * *

><p>Hinata didn't expect to see Konoha so soon. It has been a week since they left Nagi Island, and nothing has prepared her to see Naruto's enormous, sculpted head—nestled among five other accusatory heads—looming above her once again. One side of his profile is bathed in moonlight, and the other is ensconced in blue shadows. Her stomach twists at the sight. Yet she realizes with a start that she has not thought about Naruto the whole time she has traveled with Sasuke. She supposes that this is progress, though her heart still sinks into her shoes every time she accidentally glances up at the Hokage monument.<p>

She looks over at Sasuke. He is picking his fingernails with a kunai as they wait for midnight to strike. Each second feels like hours as she watches the stars slowly inching their way across the heavens. The enormity of their mission overwhelms her; she forgets to breathe. Her lungs, however, eventually _make_ her take a breath. This scenario repeats itself many times, for Hinata cannot keep back the tide of her anxiety; the back and forth of _breathing-not-breathing_ causes her to cough softly from time to time, from asphyxiation. Sasuke glares at her when she does, his red eyes glinting in the moonlight like a demon's.

By the time the waxing gibbous moon hangs at the zenith like a lopsided wheel of cheese, Sasuke motions wordlessly: it is time. Hinata feels something akin to cold, congealing grease settling in the pit of her stomach; she wants to vomit, she wants to refuse.

But she does not. She follows Sasuke like a soundless shadow. They must make a pretty pair, some idle part of her mind thinks, as they weave past the outskirts of town, through the empty park and creaking swing set. They must look like a pair of black wraiths, each with long inky hair flowing out behind them like charcoal wings; each with skin as pale as the ghostly moonlight; each with eyes alive with formidable jutsu.

As they hurdle over a fence with synchronized motions, making their way to the inner compound of the city, she feels powerful: she feels _alive._ She is a ghastly, black-winged creature with the moon for eyes; she is the second half of an unbearably handsome vampire, his eyes winking crimson, looking to her for answers.

Then, she remembers that they are on their way to kidnap Lady Tsunade. Her feelings of invincibility war with worry as they draw closer and closer to the heart of the city. Eventually, anxiety wins out, and she is left with nothing more than a pair of clammy, cold hands, and eyes bulging with jutsu and with fear.

Hinata gives the hand-signal: _t__his way. _Hinata is familiar with Tsunade's evening routine, having spent many an evening binge drinking with the Legendary Sucker herself. It turned out that the two had a lot in common: both had things, people, and places they wanted to forget; feelings they liked to numb. Sometimes, Hinata couldn't bear to stalk Naruto, and so she had settled for getting shit-faced with the old woman instead. Despite all of Tusnade's flaws—and there are many—she is an excellent drinking partner, and has taught Hinata how to take shots of hard liquor, how to play Poker with a straight face, and how to cure a hangover with medical ninjutsu.

Hinata has a pang of guilt at these thoughts, steeling herself to a facsimile of ninja calm. Uchiha-san promised he would not hurt Tsunade-sama; and if he breaks that promise, Hinata will give her life to protect the old woman. Hinata's life, after all, is not worth very much; she would happily give it up to protect Tsunade, if need be.

Soundlessly, Sasuke breaks the lock, and Hinata's mouth twists in a wry grimace: Hinata, protecting Tsunade? More likely, it will be Hinata who will need protection _from_ Tsunade! Especially after Tsunade sees what Hinata has dragged back to Konoha from the grave. _Oh Kami, what the hell am I doing…_

As Hinata has said, Tsunade is well on her way towards polishing off a fourth bottle of sake by the time they appear in her parlor. Tsunade regards them coolly, her brown eyes sparkling over the rim of her sake cup. She takes a sip of alcohol and winks. With a sinking feeling, Hinata realizes that they have not caught the last legendary Sanin off-guard.

"Hinata-chaaaaaaan. And, if I do believe my eyesiessss, Sssasssuke-kuuuuuuun," she slurs. Hinata can smell the alcohol on Tsunade's breath from across the room. "I think I believesss m'eyesss, but I'm a drunk. Hmmm." Tsunade performs a jutsu to flush the alcohol from her system; the next second, she is clear-eyed, and her mouth twitches up in a lopsided grin. "Oh my. It _is_ the Uchiha. Sit down children, tell me what you want."

"You—you knew we were here!" Hinata gasps, while beside her Sasuke stands as still as an alabaster statue in the golden lamplight. Neither of them take Tsunade's invitation to sit down.

"I do hail from the Uzumaki line, all legendary sensors in their own right; and while Naruto refuses to sense your chakra, Hinata-chan, I do not have the same compulsions. I knew from the start when Uchiha Sasuke returned, left, and returned once more to Konoha. Are you having an affair with a dead man, Hinata-chan?"

Hinata turns a lovely shade of puce.

Finally, Sasuke moves, slowly, so as not to startle the Sanin. From his black cloak, he withdraws the scroll and carefully hands it to the Godaime. He is a calm, methodical man: he knows, if Tsunade has been prepared for their assault, that he should tread cautiously. "I need someone to perform this jutsu on me, Tsunade." Hinata winces as Sasuke leaves off the honorific after Tsunade's name.

Tsunade edges her chair closer to the lamplight and peruses the scroll. "I see. And if I refuse?"

"I will take you by force."

Tsunade eyes Hinata, who by now is trembling like a wind-blown leaf. "I see," Tsunade murmurs. "You came here to kidnap me."

"It's not—Tsunade-s-s-sama! I-I-I—" Hinata tries to speak, but she is silenced by Sasuke's outstretched hand.

"Yes, if need be," Sasuke interrupts in a deep, gravelly voice.

"Well, unfortunately for you, brat, I can't pull off this jutsu."

There is silence in the room; Hinata swears she can hear the oil in the lamp sputter, and the soft clink of sake bottles as Tsunade rests her elbows on the wobbly table.

"Why not?" Sasuke demands.

"If you had read this scroll well, you would have seen that this jutsu requires a long list of rare ingredients. I certainly don't have the ashes of a phoenix reborn, the fins of a mermaid, or the blossoms of the legendary Sukarah herb, which blooms only once every thousand years."

Sasuke's fists clench, unclench, then contract again; Hinata can hear the blood rushing in her ears, and she is afraid—_deathly_ afraid. Will Sasuke go on a killing rampage? Will he activate his horrible doujutsu and burn them all in black hellfire? Will he—

"If you do not have these ingredients," Sasuke mutters, his voice as dark as a starless night, "do you know anyone who does?"

"I thought you'd never ask," Tsunade quips. "There is an old sorceress by the name of Erishiki, who lives secluded in the mountains outside of Lightening Country. She was called upon in the First Ninja War to kill wielders of the Mangekyo Sharingan, but since that time, she has refused to leave her mountain."

Sasuke sputters a bit, like a fierce flame in the wind. "You mean to tell me… That a woman from the First Ninja War is still _alive_?"

Tsunade gives him a wry smile. "Yep. Probably. She's the only one who can help you. I certainly cannot."

Sasuke all but snarls as he activates his doujutsu. He looks into Tsunade's eyes and she passed out, her head making a loud thwacking sound as it hits the table.

"Tsunade!" Hinata yelps in fear. She turns to Sasuke: "Is she—"

"She's fine," Sasuke barks. "I just erased her memories and put her to sleep. She'll just wake up in the morning with nothing worse than a hangover."

Hinata lets out a breath of air and silently follows Sasuke out of Tsunade's home.

When they leave, Tsunade raises her head from the table, a grimace spread out across her features. "Damn brat. Thinks he can waltz in here and put the former Hokage under a genjutsu. Pompous little troll." She laughs bitterly and pours herself another drink. "I don't know if I should tell Naruto-kun about this. But then again, maybe I should." Tsunade frowns into her cup, then kicks it back before pouring another.

There is time. The sorceress is at least a two-week trek away, so there is no need to rush. She decides that tonight, she will get rip-roaring drunk; she'll figure out what to do about _this_ pretty little situation in the morning.

* * *

><p><em>an Thanks so much to all my wonderful readers; _

_special super duper thanks to **Uchiha.S**, the most awesome beta eva:)_

_Please review and let me know how you liked the chapter-_

_what part of the story did you like best?_

_xoxoxo, Wingsies:)_


	8. The Stalkers and the Stalked

A/N Hey gang! Welcome back, and thanks for all your nice reviews:) Special thanks to my beta, **Uchiha.s, **who is the funniest beta on god's green earth. Seriously. *hugs*

Just FYI before we get started, **I'll be taking a mini-break from "Better Off Dead" and "Song of Aether"; expect updates on these fics around Feb. 3rd**. I've just hit a bit of writer's block + frustration, but no fear; I just need a little break and I'll be good as new!

In the meantime, I'll be playing with a fun ShinoHina called

"**When a BAMF Can't Get Laid,"** up at:

www. fanfiction. net/s/7758705/1/

(Minus the spaces of doom of course; or find the link in my profile:)

Ok, please enjoy the next installment:) And have a wonderful weekend!

* * *

><p>Chapter 8:<p>

**The Stalkers and the Stalked**

_See that lonesome mourning dove,_

_She's flitting from pine to pine; _

_She's mourning for her own true love,_

_Just like I mourn for mine._

_~All the Good Times are Past and Gone, Traditional_

"Sakura-chan…" Naruto mumbles sleepily, practically drooling on the paperwork littering the kitchen table. It is nearly two in the morning, but they've barely made a dent in the towering stack of administrative work. Ink stains his hands, accentuating the dry lines and cracks in his skin, outlining the whorls of his finger-pads. The kitchen table is covered in myriad dark smudges, where unwitting fingers, wrists, and elbows have traipsed between wet pages and polished wood.

"Hmmm," is all Sakura says. Her eyebrows are creased in concentration, her pen is scribbling furiously. She does not look up at him.

"Hinata's back in the village," he blurts out at last.

"Oh." Her pen pauses and she looks up at her husband. Naruto is gazing out of the window; his face is bathed in sallow moonlight, and it makes him look deathly pale. She shakes off the morbid imagery and blinks. "That was a short vacation," she finally replies, her voice tinged with annoyance.

"She's spying on me again," he says with a sigh. His fingers twirl in the curtain ties, though he knows it is useless to cover the windows. His stalker, after all, is a Byakugan wielder.

"Just shut her out," Sakura snaps, sounding more harsh than she intends. But gods, she is _tired,_ and they have mountains of work to do, and the last thing she needs is Hinata spying on them _again._ Hinata's leave of absence had been a real vacation for Sakura, and she is sorry the Hyuga has returned.

Sakura rubs her temples and tries to think. Kami, it was bad enough when Hinata watched them embracing—one doesn't need to be a sensory-type to feel the caustic Hyuga eyes boring through the walls and the curtains, drilling holes in her back while she kisses her husband. But right now, they are just doing paperwork! What is the appeal in spying on them _now_? Sakura shakes her head: there has never been any rhyme or reason to Hinata's obsessive stalking. "The only thing to do is to ignore her," Sakura states evenly, her red-rimmed eyes meeting his. The advice is as much for her benefit as it is for his.

"You're right," he replies after a short pause, evidentially willing himself to ignore his old stalker. "The baby's crying, would you mind…?"

Sakura blinks. She had been so wrapped up in her frustration, she hadn't heard the child wailing from the other room. "Of course; she's probably hungry. Naruto," she whispers, rising from her chair with jerky, tired movements, "just—"

"I know," he growls, "_just ignore her_."

Deflated, Sakura sighs and leaves the kitchen, floating into the bedroom like a tired ghost. "Hush now, little one," she murmurs to the baby, undoing the ties to her blouse. She begins breast-feeding with the practiced, numb movements of a harried mother, sitting on a rocking-chair and looking stony-faced at a wall.

But suddenly, she feels a thread of chakra tickling her senses. It feels so familiar, and heat rushes to her face—

"Sasuke-kun?" she breathes.

Just as quickly as the sensation had come, it is gone; like a breath frosting in the air, then fading back into the aether.

A bitter cry dies in her throat. She squeezes her eyes shut, willing the familiar images to go away—_nightmarish fists flaming, Sasuke not moving, rent flesh, shattering bones; her hand is covered in dust and in blood, Sasuke's blood, oh Sasuke, Sasuke-kun, Sasuke-kun, why? Sasuke-kun don't leave me, I love you, I never meant to—_

The baby gurgles happily and falls back asleep. The sound brings her back to reality. Sakura replaces the babe in the cradle with shaking hands. She resolves to put off the rest of the paperwork until morning. She needs sleep.

She must be tired, hallucinating the chakra of one long dead.

* * *

><p>They are standing outside the Hokage mansion; their vantage point is familiar. Why should it not be? It is from this ledge that Hinata formerly spied on the Hokage, before she left Konoha.<p>

"Why are we here, Uchiha-san?" she whispers. If attempting to kidnap the former Hokage wasn't enough, now they are a scant twenty feet from the current Hokage. And though they are hidden by the deep shadows cast by the apartment complex behind them, and by Sasuke's delicately woven genjutsu, Hinata is still all nerves.

Back then—back before the ugly duckling incident, before leaving the village to become a Vestal virgin—Sasuke had been with her the whole time, stalking her while she stalked, but Hinata hadn't _known._ Now, she is harboring a rogue ninja and she _knows_ it; she has helped him to infiltrate the village! And Sasuke, he is sitting right next to her, his Sharingan turning like a red windmill on a field of ink as he watches the Hokage and his family with Hinata.

Naruto is sitting at a table with Sakura, both hunched over the table and tense: looks like it is another late-night paperwork session. In a moment, Sakura jerks her head towards the bedroom, then walks towards it with leaden movements. Hinata infers that the baby needs feeding.

"Hyuuga-san," Sasuke murmurs, "let me borrow your eyes."

She pales at that. "Wha…?" Dear gods, what did he mean, _borrow her eyes?_ Take them out of her head? Or—

He grunts. "I can use my ocular jutsu to _see_ through your eyes. Please," he adds, and Hinata nods her head slowly. She can never refuse him; not when he says please.

He activates his sharingan, three pinwheels whirling like a ferris wheel, then faster, faster, and Hinata is trapped; she is pulled in like a bug drowning in flame and candle wax—

The world drops, and she feels like she is dying in a thick, roiling darkness; she loses all feeling. But then, after a terrifying moment of dark nothingness, she can feel her body once more, albeit numbly. Sasuke is there, controlling the movements of her head, the chakra in her eyes. He focuses her Byakugan and zeros in on the Hokage mansion, looking through the walls of the bedroom. They see Sakura feeding her baby, her breast bared and clutched by the infant's tiny hands and greedy mouth.

Somewhere within the confines of her own consciousness, Hinata realizes with a start that _this_ must be the reason why Sasuke came back to the village in the first place: for Sakura. Hinata delicately probes Sasuke's chakra, settled inside of her own body like a nesting doll. She can feel his strained emotions: they are faint, she wouldn't have found them if she hadn't been looking for them.

But as she concentrates on his chakra, his feelings tumble over her like the waves of the sea, lapping at feet wedged in wet sand; there is a sensation of sinking, of lurching. Hinata _hears_ something, and with a start, realizes that it is Sasuke's own thoughts:

_One last time. I'll see her, one last time, before I die._ There is longing, but also bitterness. Hinata sees a flash of memory: Sakura's fists flailing, panic crossing her flushed face, the bones of his body breaking under the weight of clenched hands and rupturing earth. His body is numb; he is beyond pain. Before the world goes black with blood, her emerald eyes are the last thing he sees—_I should have died by her hand. It would have been better that way. But it does not matter, I will die, anyway. Only…if only… It would have been better if _they_ had killed me, back then…_

It feels like he is drowning in inchoate emotion; a sensation Hinata knows only too well from her own unrequited longings. Caught up in the waves of Sasuke's inner world, she barely notices as his chakra flares, and he reaches out to Sakura, as if his chakra could cradle the curve of her cheek—

Sakura starts and stares right at them; Sasuke recoils, as if burned, back into Hinata's body, and then _out_ and back into his own—

Hinata is panting from exertion, her eyes ache and her head spins. "Come on! We've got to get out of here!" Sasuke whispers harshly. He pulls her up by the crook of her elbow, and they are running, leaping, jumping, _away away away_ from Konoha. Everything is blurry. Hinata can't see past her pulsing eyes; when she opens them, they are full of water, like the ocean; it is like trying to see through a thick wall of wavy glass.

But whose tears fill her eyes? Her own?

Or Sasuke's?

Konoha is a hazy fog. By the time Hinata can see again, they are safely ensconced in the dark forest. They pause to catch their breath. Hinata leans against the rough trunk of a pine tree, panting heavily; the scent of crushed pine needles fills her nostrils, making her homesick for a home that is no longer her own.

"Come on," Sasuke mutters, his voice as rough as gravel. "We've got to keep going."

Hinata rubs her eyes, which have only partially recovered; she nods her assent, though she wishes that they could rest longer, for her body is still weak and shaking. Sasuke's gaze seems to soften, though he turns around so quickly, Hinata is not sure. However, she can't help but notice that the pace he's set for them is a gentle one.

And as they leap through the forest like the silent shadows of birds, all dark feathers brushing against the velvet night, Hinata feels something yield within her. When she looks at Sasuke's broad back, she is filled with emotions she cannot name: feelings that smell like autumn rain, that wink like dew in the first morning's light. It is sadness and death and glorious life all at once, freedom in the darkness etched with boundless moonlight; in Hinata's heart, contradictions like Zen koans blossom.

As dawn breaks, Sasuke motions for a halt under a copse of dark pines. "Sleep," he orders. He leaps up on a low branch and leans against the trunk. Hinata shrugs, weariness overtaking her at last, and kneels down in a deep pile of pine needles. The scent is cool and comforting; she snuggles down into it and takes one last glance at Sasuke, who is looking down at her. Their eyes meet. She smiles at him and closes her eyes, before he can say anything else with his gaze. And she falls asleep knowing that he is watching over her, and that today, she finally understands.

She is no longer so alone.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knows that when she wakes, they will travel to Lightening, to slay Uchiha Sasuke by the hand of strange sorcery; that soon, she will become alone once more. But for now, the future is muted by the smell of evergreens and the watchful Sharingan eyes of a man who cannot sleep.

* * *

><p><em>an see you in a few weeks! Please let me know how you like this fic via your kind review:)_


	9. The Stalked Stalking the Stalkers

_a/n hey gang, I'm back! Thanks so much for your patience while I took a lil' break there, and also thank you for your encouraging reviews and PM's. Special thanks to **Uchiha.s** for her wonderful beta'ing, as always:)  
><em>

_I'm going on an epic updating rampage this weekend; not only have I updated "Better Off Dead," but "The Forest," "Song of Aether," and "When a BAMF can't get Laid" have all been updated too. Check them out if you get a chance!_

_Without further ado, please enjoy the next installment of "Better Off Dead," and a happy weekend to all! :) _

_Updated to the song, "Runner Ups," by Kurt Vile:)_

* * *

><p>Chapter 9: <strong>The Stalked Stalking the Stalkers<strong>

"I wanted to see her. One last time," Sasuke ventures when Hinata wakes. To an outsider, it may seem like a non-sequitur—but Hinata is used to Sasuke responding to questions long past.

She nods at him, understanding that he is referring to Sakura. "I know," Hinata says, before she starts a fire for tea. Tea is a small luxury, but she has only slept a few hours; she will need something hot and caffeinated before traveling. "Would you like some tea?"

Sasuke stares at her for a moment; just as Hinata worries that his eyes are going to dry out for lack of blinking, he nods. "Yes. Please."

A timid smile blooms across her face. She bows over her small fire, starting it with her camping flint, stoking it with the practiced movements of a seasoned traveler. She procures from her pack a small kettle, two metal traveling mugs, and a pouch of smokey-smelling tea: it is Lapsang Souchong tea from the Country of Tea.

When the tea is brewed, she wordlessly hands Sasuke a cup; he hovers above her for a moment, then joins her to sit cross-legged on the soft, pine needle covered ground.

Hinata closes her eyes and sips. The hot water stings her lips, but she cannot wait to taste the tea. She breathes deeply, the chocolatey overtones of steam mingling with the smell of pine; it is an altogether comforting yet invigorating smell. She takes sip after greedy sip until the tea is cool enough gulp. The tea courses down her parched throat, chasing away the fatigue of last night's misadventures. With a sigh, she finishes her cup, tipping it back all the way until the last drop falls on her tongue.

She chances a glance at Sasuke, who has finished his tea already. She holds out her hand and collects the second cup, stowing everything back in her pack. "Thank you for waiting, Uchiha-san."

He nods curtly. "I know how you are—with your tea."

Her warm smile is her only reply as she rises, ready to set out in the midmorning sunlight.

* * *

><p>"What do you mean <em>Sasuke<em> was with her?"

"Just what I said, troll," Tsunade remarks. "I always told you he would come back." Silently, she curses the freakish Mangekyo Sharingan; no matter how many times they try to put Sasuke in the ground, he will live again.

Naruto is pale as milk; he grips the back of his chair with white-knuckled hands. "How long ago?" he whispers.

Tsunade shrugs. "He was here two nights ago."

"Damn it Tsunade!" Naruto roars, knocking his chair to the ground; the chair legs break and ricochet off the walls with four _thud-thud-thud-thuds_. "Why didn't you tell me sooner? They have a two-day lead on us now!" His eyes are wide and frantic, his fingers claw at his scalp.

Tsunade exhales sharply and stares down at her hands. "Because you'd stop him."

"Damn right I'd—"

"I think he's doing the right thing." _For once,_ she adds mentally.

"By killing himself? Baa-chan!" Naruto shrieks, kneeling by Tsunade and forcing her to look into his eyes. "Please tell me where they went!"

"Not until you calm down, brat!" Tsunade barks. "And bring Sakura in here, too. She should know about this as well."

Naruto is gone in a yellow flash before Tsunade can finish her sentence; he returns with Sakura in tow before she can bat her eyelashes. "Naruto," Sakura grouses, "what gives? I was in the middle of surgery—"

"It's Sasuke," he breathes, and there is a wild look in his eyes. "He's alive."

"Wha…?" She looks between Naruto and Tsunade frantically, their eyes confirming the words. "Alive?" she squeaks.

"Not quite," Tsunade's gravelly voice breaks in. "He's…how shall I put it? He's _undead."_

"He's alive," Sakura whispers, ignoring her sensei's words. "Where? Where is he?" There is desperation in her voice; a dreadful hunger that she's kept under veil, a gnawing that's been forced down for so long: feelings that are finally spilling out.

"He's with Hinata—and they have a full two day lead on us," Naruto grunts, and he fills his wife in on what Tsunade has told him.

When Sakura faces Tsunade, there is betrayal and hurt written across her features, but Tsunade merely snorts in the wake of her watering eyes. "You look like a kicked puppy," she remarks. "I thought I taught my apprentice better than that." Before Sakura can break in, Tsunade presses on, "It will take them _at least_ two weeks to get there—they have leagues of hills to traverse until they get through Hot Springs and Frost Country—and no one knows where, exactly, this sorceress is. If the Hokage and Haruno Sakura can't locate a missing nin and a mousey kunoichi within two weeks, then Jiraiya and I were unworthy mentors."

Sakura's eyes are still wet, and in her irises Tsunade can read: _You sent him off to his death—just when we found him alive again—how? Why why why?_ But when Tsunade turns to Naruto, his blue eyes sparkle with mischief: he has read underneath the underneath.

"That means you'll cover for us, granny—while we search for Sasuke?" Naruto asks, his voice rising with hope.

Tsunade heaves a huge sigh, her generous bosoms heaving with the motion. She has been chewing this dilemma over for days, thinking about telling these two or not. And when she thought about it another way—if someone had given her and Jiraiya a chance to save Orochimaru—well, that was the deal breaker.

Even if she and Jiraiya had failed, the important thing would have been to try. Tsunade didn't want Naruto and Sakura to go to their graves cursing her because she took away their right to even _try._

She might have been a terrible gambler, but she knows a bet she has to take when she sees it. If she takes away Naruto and Sakura's last chance to right all their wrongs; their chance to at least _talk_ (fight) with the bastard before he commits his (final) suicide, then she won't be able to live with herself. It is her damnable will of fire and the principle that you can never give up on your teammates, no matter the cost, no matter _what._

Naruto has taught her that.

She rolls her eyes. "I'll take over the roles of the Hokage and head surgeon; but you two need to find baby-sitters for your brats." They leave in a yellow flash after barely a thank-you and a by-your-leave. For the first time in a long time, Tsunade is stuck once again with the Hokage's job. And _again,_ it's Naruto's fault.

"Damn brat," she snaps, before ordering one of the secretaries to get her a new chair. She eyes the daunting stack of paperwork and begins searching the office for Naruto's hidden stash of sake, cursing when she can't find it.

* * *

><p>"We're being followed," Sasuke murmurs to her, and Hinata nods. She has felt it too over the last few days, thin wisps of all-too-familiar chakra.<p>

It is unlucky to have the legendary Toad Sage tracking them; no matter how they hide their chakra signatures now, he will find them.

"It's me," Hinata murmurs. "He must have found out—"

"From Tsunade," Sasuke finishes with a hiss. "It's my fault. I didn't double-check the genjutsu. I was so sure…"

Hinata shakes her head. "We can still lose him. Hold on." She activates her Byakugan and scans the forest. "They're at least half a day's journey from us, and Naruto can't use the Hiraishin to places he hasn't marked yet. Plus, he doesn't want to lose our trail, so he wouldn't dare to teleport."

She sucks in a deep breath and calculates their next move. It has only been five days since they left Konoha, and they still have about nine more days of traveling left until they make it to the border between Frost and Lightning.

"We'll have to run at top speed," Sasuke hisses. "We can't stop until we reach Lightning."

Hinata smiles. "No. There's not enough time; besides, I have a better idea."

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><p><em>an will do my best to update in 1-2 weeks; please let me know what you think via your kind review:)_


	10. Second Thoughts

Special thanks to **DreamingCynic **for the title to this chapter, and extra special super duper thanks to my awesome fantastical beta, **Uchiha.S.**

And thanks to you, dearest readers! I love your reviews, they really make me smile:)

If you like zombies—and I know I do—check out my latest fic called "Zombie Plague," a romantic comedy staring Shikamaru and Temari. It's up at:

**www. fanfiction s/7820420/1/**

(minus the annoying spaces of doom)

Enough shameless self-plugging, on with the story!

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><p><strong>Chapter 10: Second Thoughts, or Team Stalker vrs Team Stalked<strong>

This is it—Naruto can feel Sasuke's chakra pulsing just ahead of them. He spares a glance for Sakura, her lips pressed and white around the edges, her eyes bleary but determined. After three days of floundering before _finally_ picking up the trail, then another twenty-four hours rushing after the running ninja, Naruto and Sakura are closing in at long last.

The chase brought them out of the Fire Country and up onto the split border between Hot Springs and Rice Country. Their quarry is zig-zagging over the hilly border. Just when Naruto and Sakura had chased them up a hill and were cresting the final ridge was when Sasuke and Hinata dove back down into the valley. And when they closed in on them in the valley, their prey would rush back into the hills. It was an exhausting strategy, and Naruto's only consolation was that the two they were chasing must be as exhausted as their pursuers.

It does not matter: soon, they will have Sasuke.

Naruto intends to beat the shit out of him, then beg him for forgiveness, and _then_ drag the bastard home. It seems like a good game plan, and Sakura agrees. He's promised to let her get a few good hits in on Sasuke too, which makes Naruto feel magnanimous—because after all, Sasuke belongs to both of them, doesn't he?

Naruto is broken out of his thoughts by a swerving of the chakra in front of them. "Shit! They're veering into Rice again!"

Sakura grimaces. "I was afraid of this—they must be heading for an old hideout in Otogakure. Sasuke knows this terrain better than we do, Naruto-kun. Let's hurry!"

They tear down the mountainside, heedless of brambles ripping at their clothes and skin. The glint of the setting sun blinds them as they speed westward; a branch smacks Naruto's orange-rimmed eyes, but he pays it no mind. He simply closes his eyes and allows nature charka to flow through him, flow between him and Sasuke—until there is only Sasuke, swimming in his vision like a memory burned onto his cornea, an idol eternally established in the temple of his blue-tiled irises. There is only Sasuke; there is no room for anything else.

The muscles in his legs burn with exhaustion but he does not feel them, only feeds them more chakra, _more more more chakra, _until he pulls ahead of Sakura, practically flying out of the forest and onto the hard, rocky soil. His feet slap the ground, but he ignores the jarring pain that accompanies each shuddering footfall—because there_,_ _there_ is Sasuke's broad form and Hinata's smaller one, bobbing up and down just out of reach like a double image. He sees them run into an ancient, abandoned building.

"Shit," Naruto swears, coming to a halt outside the dilapidated warehouse. When Sakura finally catches up to him, cheeks flushed and lungs heaving, he nods with his head towards the structure. "They're in there."

Sakura cracks her knuckles. "Not for long." She steps forward with deliberate strides, and Naruto can _feel_ her gathering the chakra into her hands. She raises an angry fist up to the sky, shining with blue chakra. Her hand hovers for a moment; then, without warning, she slams it down. There is a great groaning of earth; the ground shudders like a dying animal, and a fissure opens up between her fist and the hideout.

Walls tremble before collapsing, glass shatters and rings as it hits the rocky soil; the whole structure moans before crumbling like dry bread. A cloud of dust mushrooms from the wreckage. For a few, heart-wrenching moments, Naruto can't see, there is no Sasuke in sight—Sasuke who was dead, Sasuke who is alive, Sasuke who is _his and theirs and how _dare _Hinata—_

Panicked, Naruto cries, "Sasuke! Sasukeeeeeeeeee! Sasuke, come out and fight me, you bastard! You fucking bastard! I haven't given up on you, Sasukeee!"

And Sakura's voice joins his, hysterical, "Sasuke? Sasuke, _please_, we're your friends! Sasuke, I—_we_—still love you, I—_we_—still need you, _Sasukeeeeeeee!"_ They cry like two lost children for their mother, exhaustion overriding their nerves, their emotions raw, all stealth and ninja training forgotten in this shared, familial pain—_how could you leave us Sasuke? You were everything, you are everything, you are the ends and the means, the missing piece of ourselves, Sasukeeeeeeee—_

At long last the dust clears, revealing two lone, dark-haired shinobi standing over the flattened debris. A breeze blows, and two heads of long, dark hair flow in the air like black streamers; twin sets of eyes, one bottomless black and one seamless white, regard them.

"I'm s-sorry, N-Naruto-k-kun—" Hinata starts, but Sasuke cuts her off.

"Stop following us. Dead-last. Useless," Sasuke snaps, glaring at Naruto and Sakura in turn. "Give it up." They disappear in two matched puffs of smoke.

"No," Naruto breathes. He falls to his knees.

"Sasuke! Sasuke-kun!" Sakura wails, running over to the pile of debris the two rogue ninja had stood upon only a moment ago. "Sasuke-kun, please, come back!" She shouts it so loudly, the nearby mountains echo with it, hurling her words back as if to mock her: _Come back, come back, come back!_

"It's no use, Sakura-chan," Naruto whispers, clutching his hands into fists, his jagged fingernails digging uneven, bloody crescents into his palms. "They were only clones." It's the oldest trick in the book—for Kami's sake, it's _his_ trick—and now Sasuke is gone. _Gone_, because Naruto is a fool, and let his emotions get the better of him, letting Sasuke lead him right into his _damned fucking trap—_

"Sakura," Naruto croaks, "Sakura, we're going home—"

"What? NO! No, Naruto, we can't give up—"

Naruto shakes his head impatiently. "I'm not giving up. I'm getting the ANBU. And I'm going to ask the Raikage for help." Sakura heaves a huge sigh, choking back her tears. She reaches out for his outstretched hand, and they are gone in a yellow flash.

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><p>"They're not going to give up," Sasuke grunts.<p>

Hinata is still reeling from the information her dispelled clone has given her. Huffing, she pushes off of a branch and catches up to Sasuke. "I know," she replies, her voice tremulous, "but we've bought ourselves time." She takes a deep, shaky breath and tries to steady herself. Gods, she feels terrible, like a total and utter _asshole._ She never meant to hurt—

"It was a good plan," Sasuke capitulates, breaking into her reeling thoughts.

Without thinking, she blurts out, "I wish you hadn't said that."

He raises a cool eyebrow. "That I hadn't complimented you?"

"No," she growls, "you know. You _know."_ She forces chakra into her feet and pulls ahead of him, her shorter legs burning furiously for having been forced to run at Sasuke's pace for so long. It is the first time she is truly angry at him, the first time she wants to take his columnar, swan-like neck and _break it in two._

The look on Naruto and Sakura's faces, when Sasuke had said _that_—even now, she feels her heart constrict and sink into her shoes. _"Stop following us. Dead-last. Useless. Give it up." _It echoes in her head like the punch-line to a bad joke; her eyes water and a headache begins to throb at the base of her skull.

Why is she helping this horrible man? Why is she formulating strategies for him that exploit Naruto and Sakura's weaknesses? Why doesn't she just let Naruto and Sakura _have_ their Sasuke, let them do with him what they will? After all, it is a Team Seven thing, and she is an outsider. No, worse than that: she is the crowbar tearing their friendship—their family—asunder.

And what does she think she is doing, now that her cover has been blown and her Hokage—her _mother fucking Hokage—_ knows she has been aiding and abetting a rogue S-classed ninja at best—or helping to murder his best friend at worst? She's going to be dishonorably discharged from the ranks, she's going to be executed, she's going to be—

"You're going to be fine," Sasuke snarls behind her, catching up effortlessly with his longer stride. "Stop worrying so much."

"What do you—"

"I'll write a note to the Idiot, before I die. I'll explain that I coerced you to help me. You'll be _fine._"

Hinata worries her bottom lip with her teeth; it infuriates her that he can read her thoughts so easily. She stumbles over a rock as she runs; she bites through her lip and it bleeds, dark crimson staining her pale skin. She wipes it away with the back of her grimy hand, streaking blood mixed with gray dirt across her cheek. "That's not the only thing I am concerned about," she replies darkly. It is the last thing she says to him the entire day. Even when they stop, limp with exhaustion at about midnight, she is as silent as the crescent moon floating in the eastern sky.

She is having second thoughts.

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><p><em>an Thanks so much for reading! Let me know what you think via your kind review:)_


	11. ANBU

_Wow, I totally didn't think I'd be able to publish this early; extra super duper thanks to my beta, genius of the Tomione/Voldemoine pairing, **Uchiha.S.** It's because of her y'all get to enjoy this chapter a week early! Thanks Uchiha-chan!  
><em>

_Thanks for all your wonderful reviews; I'm pretty sure I replied to them all, but I was kind of sick this week, so if I didn't thank you personally, I'm really sorry! I always try to thanks each and every one of you wonderful people!_

_In other good news, I finally started working on making this fic an original; if you want to read more about it, check out my LJ:_

_ wingedmercury. livejournal. com (minus the annoying spaces of doom)._

_And now, without further ado...! _

_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(Published to S'cooled, by Blood Orange)~~~_

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><p><strong><strong>Chapter 11: <strong>****ANBU**

"_Bright morning stars are rising,_

_Day's a breakin' in my soul;_

_O where are our dear fathers?_

_O where are our dear mothers?_

_Day's a breakin' in my soul;_

_They have gone to heaven shoutin'_

_Day's a breakin' in my soul."_

_~Bright Morning Stars, Traditional_

In the morning, Sasuke's body language is impatient: his eyes twitch with every rustling leaf, his fingers jerk with every chirping bird. Hinata ignores him and concentrates on making tea. "If I don't have tea," she mumbles, as if to herself, "I won't be able to function."

He runs a hand through his hair and says nothing, though she knows he is displeased; though he knows that she knows that he is displeased. Hinata is secretly gratified that she can piss off Uchiha Sasuke—Kami knows, this man has pissed _her_ off innumerable times, and she has been too afraid to say anything. Wordlessly, she hands him a cup of tea. She avoids looking at him at all; just shoves the cup in his direction.

"Earl Grey," Sasuke murmurs, his face pinched.

"Your least favorite tea," Hinata replies, taking her own mug and sitting under a pine tree, pointedly ignoring him. The tea tastes flat to her tongue, ruined by the memories of bad dreams: Naruto and Sakura, all white-faced and asking her _Why? Why Hinata, why did you kill him, why did you kill us? Because Sasuke belongs to _us, _is a part of us—he dies and we die. Murderer, Murderer, why why why?_

Their eyes had searched hers, had accused her with every crystalline tear. _I thought you loved me,_ Naruto murmurs in her imagination, _I thought you loved me…_

Hinata's tea goes cold in the metal mug. At last, under Sasuke's glare, she pours out her tea in the dirt and packs her things.

He does not chide her for taking a long time to accomplish nothing. It is wise of him, for she is under-caffeinated; she will literally bite off his pointy little head if he snaps at her. Hinata muses that people can only push her so far, they can hurt the people she loves only so much, before her inner demon rears its ugly head. _Bite me,_ the demon's voice seems to hiss. _See if you can get through me; see if you can hurt my friends. I dare you._

"We should hit the border with Frost soon," Sasuke mumbles.

Hinata says nothing, makes no notion that she has heard him.

An hour passes. The sun is at a thirty-degree angle from the earth, and Hinata reasons that it must be about ten o'clock. As they climb the hill, the air gets colder; frost glitters from the shaded patches under the trees. Hinata sighs. She supposes that they don't call it Frost Country for nothing. The half-frozen autumn leaves crunch under her boots; they sound like snapping bones.

"Hinata," Sasuke ventures, his voice startling her; he does not usually speak to her so many times in one day. She wasn't expecting to have to talk to him until _at least_ mid-day. "I…I…"

"Spit it out," she grunts, and all at once she is surprised—and deeply, _deeply_ pleased—by their role reversal.

"Tch. I'm fucking _sorry_. About what I said. To Naruto and Sakura."

But Hinata is not feeling very forgiving this morning. "Tell it to Naruto and Sakura," she snaps, trying to stalk off ahead of him. But Sasuke steps in front of her with his longer stride, blocking her path, his Sharingan whirling red and black and menacing.

Hinata will not be cowed. "Those were your last words—to your _friends._ To your fucking _family_." Hinata closes her eyes, but it is not because she fears the Sharingan; it is because she can see Shino, Kiba, and Kurenai on the insides of her eyelids and _gods, what if I had said that to them before I died, they would be devastated, they—_

"I'm not sorry then," Sasuke grumbles.

Hinata takes a deep, shuddering breath. "I'll never forgive you." She strides past him, leaving him standing there with his useless doujutsu activated. "Come on. Let's get you dead already," she mumbles; he falls into step behind her.

They do not walk for long. Hinata raises her gaze after she's gone about five paces, and realizes too late that they are surrounded on all sides by ANBU. Her eyes grow wide with the Byakugan and with fear. "Shit," she breathes, the weight of her folly crashing down on her. If she hadn't been so pissed off at Sasuke, she would have been more attentive to her sentinel duties. Too late, she focuses her doujutsu and gasps—

Because upon closer inspection, these are not Konoha ANBU—

They're Lightning ninja.

Sasuke is by her side in a flash. "Let me fight them," he whispers, "and if I fail, you surrender."

"I-I don't think that will w-work," Hinata breathes. "The Hidden Cloud has a v-vendetta against the H-Hyuga, m-myself in particular—shinobi alliance or n-no."

The Lightning Country had tried to abduct her when she had been just a child; when her kidnapper was eliminated by her father, the Village Hidden in the Cloud demanded a Hyuga in exchange. Her uncle had become a human sacrifice to stop another war from breaking out.

Even during the last war, when the various shinobi nations had become a unified, allied force, Hinata had felt uneasy around the Cloud shinobi; she had avoided them when possible. It was hard to feel at ease around the people who had tried to steal the eyeballs out of her head as a child; the people who had murdered her uncle in a senseless diplomatic move.

Sasuke presses his back to hers, and both crouch low into a fighting stance. "Fine then," he hisses. "We can't lose."

The ANBU close in then, five masked men circling in front; a group of five more to the right, then five more to the left, five more behind; five more are stationed behind the front lines, still hidden in the trees, waiting to serve as back-up. "Twenty-five," Hinata whispers.

"I know," Sasuke grunts back.

The leader, someone in a fish mask, recites as if by rote the typical ANBU turns of phrase: _don't resist, give yourselves up, you are surrounded_—

Before he gets out his last words, the five men in front of Sasuke are caught in a genjutsu, while Hinata lashes out at the leader himself, jabbing a pressure point that will make him pass out for at least a day. "Don't kill anyone, Sasuke-kun!" Hinata shouts.

"I know," he grunts, as more ANBU from fall down around them from the trees.

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><p><em>an so, what'd ya think? Let me know via your fan-fucking-tastic review:)_


	12. Idiot

You know what? I'm going to stop obsessing over this chapter and just publish it, my perfectionist tendencies be damned I say! Also, autocorrect almost made 'tendencies' into 'tentacles.' Do with that what you will.

**Thanks to all my epic reviewers; I love you, I love you, let's get married:) **

Special thanks to **Uchiha.s,** who helped with my severe and debilitating addiction and abuse of semi-colons. I thank you, sister:)

**Also, sorry about the false publish;** that was ff net's bad, not mine. The site was acting all shite-y :(

Without further ado...enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~published to "White Light" by MC Xander~~~~~~~

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><p>Chapter 12: <strong>Idiot<strong>

_Takes a worried man to sing a worried song,_

_Takes a worried man to sing a worried song,_

_Takes a worried man to sing a worried song,_

_I"m worried now, but I won't be worried long._

_~Worried Man Blues, Traditional_

Naruto hunkers down behind his desk, surrounded by twenty walkie-talkies; they are special chakra-enhanced communication devices that have an unbelievably long range. He impatiently presses the button on the central device. "Oi, any sign yet?" he calls.

"No," twenty identical, annoyed voices call back. They are his clones, each one in charge of a group of three to four other clones; they are busy patrolling the borders of Rice, Frost, and Hot Spring Countries. Naruto pulls at a lock of tangled blond hair and kneels on the office floor, littered with an even larger web of walkie-talkies, similarly hooked up to a central device. "Hey, anybody find them yet?" he asks them all at once.

This time fifty different voices mutter a negatory—these are the voices of the Cloud nin, who have insisted on patrolling their own borders themselves. According to international law, Konoha is not allowed to send troops near Lightning's borders without express permission. Naruto couldn't pull enough weight to have his own ninja patrol Lightning's border, but he is okay with that. After all, he trusts the Raikage, and his brother, Killer Bee, has sworn to Naruto that they will take care of it.

Unfortunately, Naruto doesn't realize that one of the walkie-talkies hooked up to a group of Lightning scouts has not responded; he does not think that his "super efficient communication methods" are perhaps _too_ efficient.

The door to the office creaks open. "Naruto-kun, any word yet?"

"No, not yet, Sakura-chan," he sighs, standing up from the tangled mess of communication wires. He looks up at Sakura and it is like looking into a mirror; her lackluster eyes, disheveled hair, and wan cheeks echo his own misery.

"Maybe we should be out there ourselves—"

"I have a whole army of clones and most of the ANBU combing the entirety of Frost and Hot Springs, and even a few in Rice; and there's fifty squads of Lightning nin scouring their border, with each group reporting directly to me," he replies wearily. "I have it under control, Sakura."

Sakura leans against the door-frame and twirls her hair around a finger. "I know. I'm sorry, I—"

She cannot finish her sentence, for an irate Hyuga Neji is storming into the office; he nearly knocks Sakura over from the force of his entrance. "Hokage! You are making a grave error," he booms.

Naruto blinks at him. "What?"

"Hinata-sama," he grunts. "You're sending Cloud nin after Hinata-sama."

Naruto cocks his head to the side, still not understanding what Neji is talking about. This mission isn't _about_ Hinata—it's about getting Sasuke back. Instead of answering Neji's question, he blurts out, "You're the only one who still calls her Hinata-_sama—_"

Neji blanches while Naruto bites back a curse. While it is true that Hinata has been stripped of her rank by her younger sister, and is no longer "Lady" Hinata, it is unwise to bring that up right now. But Naruto is tired; he hadn't thought about the words coming out of his mouth. And anyway, only Neji—out of the whole Hyuga clan—still refers to her as Hinata-_sama_. It is time that he stopped, in Naruto's opinion.

There is a strained moment of silence. Neji balls his hands into fists and grits his teeth. "Naruto," Neji grunts, all formal affect removed from his words, "you sent Lightning nin— after _Hinata._"

Naruto waves his cares aside. "They'll tell Hinata and Sasuke that they aren't there to—"

"Idiot!" Neji bellows. "Do you think the Cloud ANBU will be able to get a word in? Once Hinata sees that the Lightning nin are after her—_again?"_

"What…oh. Oh shit," he mutters, only now remembering the Hyuga incident with the Lightning nin.

Neji hits himself in the face, the thwacking noise resounding throughout the office. He takes a deep breath before saying, "Furthermore, you complete and utter moron, do you think it's wise to send Lightning nin after Uchiha Sasuke? Do you remember what he did? To the Cloud nin? In the last fucking war?"

"Oh…oh shit," Naruto breathes. For obviously, Sasuke tried to kill both the Raikage and his brother in the last war, and almost succeeded on both accounts. The truth hits Naruto like a brick to the face: he has sent the worst possible teams after Hinata and Sasuke. It doesn't matter if the ANBU say they come in peace, because the two rogue nin will never believe it. He might as well have had the Cloud ANBU all wear big neon signs on their chests that read, "Sasuke and Hinata, fuck you."

"_Oh shit oh shit oh shit_," Naruto manages at last. He looks at Sakura, who has turned white as chalk. In their haste, they hadn't stopped to consider the ramifications of their actions: they had only thought about saving Sasuke from himself.

Just then, one of the myriad walkie-talkies from the Cloud ANBU comes alive: "Chhhh. Hokage-sama, one of our teams has been taken out. I repeat: one of our teams is—"

Naruto flies over to the communication lines. "Damn! Is everyone okay? What are your coordinates? What are your coordinates! Over!"

In a frenzy of communications and frantic movements, Sakura and Naruto teleport to the border of Lightning; they leave Hyuga Neji with one of Naruto's clones. Neji shakes his head and turns towards Naruto's double with a grimace. "I've already taken the liberty of assembling ten elite groups of Hyuga scouts; they're ready to be Hiraishined to the border when you are. Hokage-sama," he adds belatedly.

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><p>That had been close—too close. Hinata shudders as they weave back into Frost Country, away from the border with Lightning. They had passed a rocky outcropping a few miles back, and Sasuke believes there will be a cave they can hide in. As they weave through the lengthening shadows of twilight, Hinata clutches at her wounded shoulder; she has been careless and sustained an injury. It is not severe, but is is painful, and each step jostles her.<p>

Thank Kami, they find a damp, dank cave on the hillside. The entrance is obscured by a scraggly copse of trees, and the inside is spacious enough for both of them. Hinata hobbles inside, clutching at her arm awkwardly.

"I'll secure the perimeter. You take care of that," he mutters, gesturing towards her injured arm.

"Sasuke—I'm s-sory."

"Since when have you have you called me just 'Sasuke?' And stop stuttering. I'll be back."

He leaves her gaping. "What the hell is your problem," she whispers; but whether it is for Sasuke's benefit or for her own, she is not sure. She groans and channels healing chakra into her shoulder; once the pain is dulled, she inspects the wound. It is not deep, but the cut has severed a few nerves, and the cut itself has crusted over with dirt and debris stuck in the scab.

She builds a small fire and sterilizes a kunai in the flame. Convincing herself that she is a powerful ninja who does not feel pain, she takes the hot knife and breaks open the wound; brown puss oozes out and tears sting her eyes. Her canteen still has a small bit of water in it; she pours the tepid water into the tea kettle, bringing it to a boil before she dips the bandages in.

"That must…hurt," Sasuke says, and Hinata almost scalds herself with boiling water in surprise. She hadn't heard him enter the cave.

"It's nothing," she hisses. "I'm _fine_." She squeezes the flesh around the wound, forcing more blood and puss to come out; when the puss stops and only clean blood runs out, she fastens one end of the bandage in her mouth and wraps the other end tightly onto her arm with her free hand. "Is everything secure?" she mumbles around a mouth full of gauze.

He describes all the intricate traps, the subtle layers of genjutsu, his summoning hawks perched as wary sentinels. Hinata grunts her approval and ties up the last of her bandage. "We'll move out again when night settles. There's no moon tonight," Sasuke states.

Hinata exhales softly. It will be hard work traveling without moonlight; she's low on chakra, and will have to conserve her Byakugan. She will likely stumble over rocks, be whacked by branches, and walk through spider webs.

She wonders if Sasuke has a plan, but realizes that she doesn't care. She's too tired, her hands and uniform are stained with blood—most of it not her own—and if he expects her to travel tonight, she must rest. She settles against the uncomfortable, jagged wall of the cave and closes her eyes.

Just as she is about to drift into slumber, Sasuke asks, his voice almost child-like, "What is it like—to feel pain?"

Hinata's eyes flutter open. "Don't you feel pain?" she snaps. And then, more contrite, "Sorry. I guess you don't, if you're asking a question like that."

Sasuke laughs softly at that; she cannot see his face, for her small campfire has long since gone out, but she thinks that the laughter is not entirely unkind. It seems more self-deprecating than anything. "Never mind. I'll wake you in a few hours," he says, then stands guard at the mouth of the cave.

Hinata nods on impulse. When she remembers that he can't see her, she murmurs her assent and closes her eyes once more. What a strange traveling companion Sasuke is, she wonders to herself. She did not know that he cannot feel pain. For a moment, she thinks that he is lucky, but she quickly corrects herself. Pain is a reminder that she is still alive; Sasuke's lack of pain is a reminder that he is not alive, but also not dead.

Hinata manages to feel pity for him then, if only a little. She wishes she had the wherewithal to form a plan, but she is too tired, too confused; she leaves the task for Sasuke and drifts off into a fitful sleep. Her dreams are filled with ghosts who wander over the earth; they do not know they are dead, and they cannot touch or speak to the people they left behind.

When Sasuke wakes her at about midnight, her vision blurs in the dim candlelight; Sasuke is overlaid with the images of her nightmares, and for a moment, she swears that she can see through him. "Let's get going," Sasuke murmurs. Though where they are going, Hinata does not know, and she is not sure that even Sasuke knows. She asks no questions, simply follows Sasuke out of the cave, every muscle aching, her shoulder throbbing with pain.

At least she can feel pain, Hinata thinks. At least she is alive—for now.

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><p><em>an thanks for reading:) Please review!_


	13. The Gods Of Climbing and Falling

_a/n Hey friends, sorry for the wait! Thanks for all your super nice reviews and PM's; special thanks to **Uchiha.s,** my beta and my muse:)_

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><p>Chapter Thirteen: <strong>The Gods Of Climbing and Falling<strong>

_Oh there ain't nobody gonna miss me when I'm gone_

_There ain't nobody gonna mourn for me too long_

_Oh won't you write these words upon my tombstone_

_There ain't nobody gonna miss me when I'm gone_

_~ "Ain't Nobody Gonna Miss Me," Traditional_

Hinata pushes her tangled hair out of her red-rimmed eyes with a grimace. They have been traveling through remote areas for a week now, clinging to the deep woods infested with poison oak, rife with giant mosquitoes. Each blood-sucking bug is easily the size of her fist; despite the unpleasantness, every time she gets bitten, she feels oddly nostalgic for her teammate, Shino.

The week has been largely uneventful, besides itching poison oak rashes and mosquito bites. For that, Hinata is thankful. Outside of almost brushing up against a group of sentinels—Konoha ninja this time, but enemies all the same—they have not had any trouble. Sasuke seems to have found a way to effectively mask their chakra under a subtle but strong genjutsu. His powers of illusion grow with the waxing moon, and whatever jutsu he is weaving seems to be working.

"This is it: this is what the old woman in the village was talking about," Sasuke says. Hinata nods and blinks up at the marker, a crumbling stone sculpture of a turtle overgrown with ivy.

Another giant mosquito buzzes by her ear; she swats at it but does not manage to hit it. Apparently, her deadly ninja skills have no application towards blood-sucking bugs, as evidenced by her pockmarked skin. It irks her that Sasuke is not plagued by ginormous vampiric insects, like she is; that his flawless skin is not red and riddled, like her skin. She does not show her irritation.

"Are you sure this is it, Uchiha-san?"

But Sasuke doesn't answer, instead he strides up the rocky hillside. Hinata leaves the tree-line and scrambles after him, the loose rocks clattering hollowly under her feet. The volcanic soil sounds like the jangling of bones as it crunches and chimes with their passage.

The only things growing on this hillside are sparse smatterings of scrub oak and twisted red bushes. Otherwise, the light of the waxing crescent moon reflects on the gray stones, making it look like they are walking on a mountain of pale, jagged silver.

Panting, Hinata finally catches up with Sasuke, who is regarding an old signpost. The wood is worn with rain, the smooth surface barely legible for anyone without an ocular jutsu. "No trespassers," Hinata reads aloud, "Abandon all hope. Turn back now." They are the kinds of disclaimers that one might expect to encounter en route to a witch's house.

"Tch. Come on."

Hinata follows, the crunching chirp of her footfalls on the hollow stones her only reply. The steep bank of loose rocks levels out until Hinata can see a towering mountain rising in front of them, its monolithic profile silhouetted by the moon.

Abandon all hope indeed, Hinata thinks, as they scale the mountainside. It's slow going, even for Sasuke, for the rock is loose; for every two steps they take, they slide back one. The moon begins its slow journey from the east to its zenith; the oranges of twilight fade into indigo night. The sounds of crickets and cicadas eventually die, until nothing but the crunch of volcanic rock punctuates their slow climb.

"Uchiha-san?" Hinata mumbles, the words rasping in her dry mouth. When Sasuke does not respond, she continues, "Do you think the s-sorceress knows we are coming?" She cannot keep her anxiety out of her voice.

"Hn." Sasuke does not turn around or pause in his passage; Hinata curses herself. Sasuke never answers her when she stutters.

Sasuke does not speak after that. Hinata stares down at her shoes as she stumbles after him.

Every time she slips, sliding down the mountain, her gaze rises and bores into Sasuke's back; she stifles caustic curses. Her sleep-deprived mind starts wondering if they will be climbing this damned mountain forever—if she and Sasuke will become the gods-that-climb; or maybe, the gods-that-climb-and-fall-and-climb. After all, gods have been named after more banal things than this.

Perhaps she and Sasuke will be lost to the accounts of time, known only by their hopeless, eternal climbing-and-falling. Naruto and Sakura will forget their names, will refer to them only as the two who climb to fall, who fall to climb; who are alive and dead; outside and inside; there and nowhere—a contradiction in terms and in association. Hinata wipes the sweat out of her burning eyes and forces herself to take another step, to ignore her leaden legs and aching back and ruminating thoughts.

By the time the dawn pales the sky, Hinata is breathing heavily and her lungs are on fire. Some airy part of her brain, the part with medical training, is screaming at her to take a break, because _gods damn it you are going to make yourself ill with altitude sickness_. But she can't, she cannot rest, because Sasuke's genjutsu weakens with moonset, and they can't be caught now, not when they've come so far—

"Hinata, we're here. Hey. Hinata?"

Hinata raises another weary foot, but she does not gain purchase in the steep mountainside; instead, her foot lands back next to her other foot. She blinks at Sasuke owlishly, realizing that they have reached the top of the mountain. Exhaling in relief, Hinata leans against a tree—yes, there are real, live trees up here. True, they are gnarled, and half the size of the evergreens at the bottom of the mountain, but they are trees nonetheless; she has never been so happy to see greenery after the barren passage through sliding rocks.

"Thank goodness," she murmurs wearily, her head lolling against the twisted tree trunk.

Sasuke shoots her an unreadable expression and hands her his canteen. "We'll rest for a minute, then find cover. We can't be out for long in broad daylight."

Hinata gulps greedily at the lukewarm water, beads of liquid running down her chin and splattering on her dirty shirt. "Mmmm," she agrees, handing him back his mostly empty canteen. With reluctance, she pries herself off of the tree and forces her wobbly legs to follow Sasuke.

One day, she muses, it would be nice for Sasuke to follow her. She smiles a wry half-grin before dragging her feet after the Uchiha, first one foot, then the other; slow and half-dead, like the ungainly march of a zombie. At least the ground here is flat—thank the gods for their small kindnesses.

Hinata is so weary, she does not realize when Sasuke stops; she walks right into him, bashing her nose on his broad back. Lost in her daze of sleepiness, she forgets to apologize, instead rubs at her nose, indignant. But when she sees what has stopped him, her indignation ebbs and her mouth gapes.

"What—what is that?" Hinata whispers. Directly in front of them, an opaque wall of air shimmers like thin, insubstantial glass. It is like looking through water, all waves and glimmering bits of reflected sunshine; what is beyond the wall is obscured by the wavering light.

Sasuke frowns. "It's a barrier of some kind. I've never seen this kind of shield before." He taps his lower lip, lost in thought; his brow is furrowed. "The sorceress is likely just beyond."

Hinata can feel her palms sweat; she feels nauseous, and it is not just from altitude sickness. She is too tired to sort out all the emotions that groan in her heart: part elation, part trepidation; part deep, deep sadness.

There is no time. Sasuke takes her clammy hand in his—she winces, wishing she had wiped her palms first on her pants—before pulling her forward and plunging through the barrier.

Hinata does not have time to scream before she and Sasuke fall through the air and off the side of a cliff.

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><p><em>An heh heh, literal cliff hanger. Heh heh:)_

_Please review:)_


	14. Death Like a Lover

_Squeee! Welcome back my faithful readers! I've been working on a playlist for this fic, and it is up at:_

_**grooveshark. com/playlist/BETTER+OFF+DEAD/68340365**_

_minus the spaces of doom:) And yes, I know, I didn't put any of the bluegrass songs in-I'll be making a separate playlist for it, hopefully by next time I update. The truth is my hub is a semi-professional bluegrass musician, and when it gets down to it, most of the time I'll choose to listen to something different, just 'cause I get bluegrass all the time:)_

_Thanks for all your wonderful reviews + PM's! Special thanks to **Uchiha.s,** who is my splendiferous beta:)_

_Much love and ENJOY!_

_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~published to Habina by Rachid Taha_

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><p><strong>Chapter fourteen: Death Like a Lover<strong>

_Don't you hear them bluebirds a singin'_

_Don't you hear that lonesome sound?_

_They're preaching Corey's funeral,_

_In the lonesome graveyard ground._

_~Darlin Corey, traditional_

Everything is a fast blur as they fall; her gut lurches, her stomach hangs in her open mouth. Her limbs flail through the thin air, and gods, she can't see anything, it's so bright,like they are falling into the heart of the sun—

"Hinata!" Sasuke calls, but she is so caught up in falling, she can scarcely hear anything over the roar of the wind in her ears. She barely registers the sensation as he grabs her flailing arm in his—but hadn't they been holding hands, before? When had they let go? She doesn't know, can't remember, there is only the horrible _falling—_

She hears something exploding, like a puff of smoke, and she is slammed on the back of something soft. Stunned, her free hand grips at the solid surface underneath her; she realizes that it is a feathered back.

A shuddering breath leaves her lungs; she is safe on the back of one of Sasuke's summon hawks. She might laugh, or cry, or both. Unbidden, the breathy words, "Didn't you ever—huh—hear that you should—ahhh—look before you—huh—leap?" She takes big gulping breaths between her stunted phrases, and is unable to rise from her prone position.

She could kill Sasuke, she really could, for rushing off like that into the unknown. Sasuke is immortal, but Hinata—Hinata has had too many brushes with death since she teamed up with Konoha's number one undead sociopath.

"You're fine now. Don't complain," Sasuke snaps. She can see the tops of his shoes from her position, but not the rest of him, and she is too stunned to lift her head. She is angry, but mostly she is winded and doesn't have the fortitude for dealing with Sasuke's social ineptitude. So instead she catches her breath, burying her face in the soft feathers of the hawk, waiting, impatiently, for their ride to land.

When they finally do make it back to the earth, Hinata rises on shaking limbs to regard their surroundings, her mouth hanging open in disbelief. She activates her Byakugan and takes in the wide beaches, the lolling surf, the flat, grassy plains. There are no mountains in sight, not even in the bluish horizon; it's flat as far as her eyes can see.

"Where the hell are we?" she breathes, thinking that perhaps she has sustained a head injury, or that she is delirious from mountain sickness.

"And I could ask, why the hell are you here?" For a moment, Hinata thinks that it is Sasuke who has spoken, but the voice, though deep, is decidedly feminine, and hoarse with age. Trembling, Hinata focuses her eyes and blinks down at a turtle. Though Hinata and Sasuke still stand on the giant hawk's back, the turtle's head is as high as their feet. Its shell is easily the size of a rounded roof for a small house; a wrinkled head juts out on a long neck, and beady eyes regard them with hostility.

"Sasuke-san," Hinata whispers, her eyes clouding in shock, "I think I'm hallucinating things. Did that…did that turtle just talk?"

"Imp! Whore! Tart!" the creature snaps, her beak opening and closing with a hiss. "I'm a tortoise! Not a blasted _turtle!_ And you are trespassing on my territory!" Hinata blinks. What is the difference between a turtle and a tortoise? And why…why is this tortoise calling her a prostitute?

Hinata opens her mouth to defend herself, but Sasuke stills her by placing a heavy hand on her shoulder. "Forgive us, Mistress Tortoise," Sasuke says. "We mean no disrespect. We are looking for a sorceress named Erishiki; do you know where we can find her? It's a matter of life and death—"

If tortoises could guffaw, then Hinata is pretty sure that this is what the tortoise is doing. "You wish to see Erishiki—oh, oh, oh! And yet, you have no idea what Erishiki is—ah, ah, ah! Foolish, such foolish human children. Leave now, and I will not kill you for your impertinent words."

Hinata has her doubts that this turtle—no,_ tortoise_, she reminds herself—can kill Uchiha Sasuke, undead Mangekyo Sharingan wielder, and herself, socially awkward but still deadly in battle. Or, at least mostly deadly in battle…

Hinata shakes her head to banish her garbled, self-deprecating thoughts. They are in a strange land, and it would behoove them to act cautiously. She spares a glance at Sasuke, who is obviously thinking the same thing.

"Can you _please_ tell us where Erishiki-sama is? The peace of the world depends on it," Hinata states, keeping all traces of exasperation out of her voice. They'll ask politely, and if they don't get what they want, then they will force it out of the turtle—or tortoise—or whatever she is.

"The peace of the world?" the tortoise scoffs. "You cannot hope to turn my heart with such meager platitudes! Whose peace do you mean? The _human_ peace, of course. Well, I have done my fair share of peace-mongering, taking out countless abusers of the Sharingan. And I won't do it again, you hear me, I—"

"_You_ are the sorceress Erishiki," Sasuke whispers, his soft yet harsh voice breaking into the tortoise's tirade.

Hinata looks between her companion and the giant tortoise in confusion, before everything snaps into place. It all makes sense now; this is how someone could still be alive from the time of the first ninja wars. Tortoises are notoriously long-lived creatures, some living for thousands of years. If Erishiki is indeed the tortoise standing before them, then it is plausible that she has served in early ninja wars, ending the lives of Mangekyo Sharingan wielders with a touch of her magic wand, or whatever it was tortoise sorceresses used.

The tortoise—who is probably Erishiki, _gods, it surely must be, please let it be her_—raises her wrinkled head and stares hard at Sasuke. Hinata realizes with a start that Sasuke has activated his doujutsu, his eyes swirling red and black, regarding the tortoise coolly.

"So you want to take your revenge then, eh boy? You've come to claim this old bag of flesh for the killing of your ancestors, and to judge, you must be as crazy and blood-thirsty as—" the tortoise begins, her voice rasping with anger, but Hinata interjects before she can stop herself.

"Sasuke-san is not like that!" she shouts with indignation. "He's not like that! He is a good man," she ends in a whisper, because Sasuke is giving her one of his strange, unreadable looks, and she's not sure if he is pleased or annoyed with her outburst.

Regardless, the tortoise moves her head from side to side, considering Hinata's words. "If he is a good man—which I doubt, for the mark of the Mangekyo is the mark of a murderer—then what is a good man doing here? And you, child, you are descended from the Hyuga—a decent Konohan clan, and a sworn enemy of the Uchiha."

The tortoise squints at her, her black eyes turning an almost pale, cloudy blue for a moment, though the color change happens so fast, Hinata is not sure if she imagines it or not. "Child, you are a good one, though your light is shrouded in sorrows; do you not know that your traveling companion is fouler than the filthiest demon? More evil then—"

"He's not like that," Hinata interjects softly, her lower lip jutting out; she knows she looks like a petulant child, but she does not care. "I've come to help Sasuke-san…" She wants to say, _I've come to help Sasuke-san kill himself,_ but she can't quite get those last words out, and she doesn't know why.

"Sorceress Erishiki," Sasuke breaks in, his booming voice echoing, "if that is indeed who you are, I have come to ask your help. Please kill me."

"I am indeed the sorceress Erishiki," she murmurs, her body glowing with green chakra, "and I will kill _both_ of you for trespassing on sacred tortoise ground. For no humans are allowed in this place, and you will pay for your transgression with your lives. Starting with you, Hyuga." Erishiki's voice is smooth, not angry; she is merely stating the facts. Hinata, despite her trembling limbs, still weak from the mountain climb and the fall through the air, leaps off of Sasuke's summon and crouches in a defensive position in front of the sorceress.

Erishiki bites one of her gnarled toes and smashes her red, webbed foot down. "Summoning jutsu! Armor of a thousand shells!" All at once, Erishiki is covered in thick, metal scales and spikes; the metal curves underneath her body, protecting her more tender underbelly with a smooth sheet of steel. Her head is covered in a silver helmet that glints in the bright sunshine.

Hinata resists the urge to be impressed. Every armor, every jutsu, has a weakness; she forces her eyes to find it. But Hinata does not have long, for the sorceress roars, "Tortoise style: summoner of a thousand blades!" From the webbed and wrinkled feet emerge countless silver swords, winking in the sunlight with their wicked ends all pointed towards Hinata.

"GO!" Erishiki roars, and the swords stop hovering in the air and zip towards Hinata.

But Hinata is ready, her palm is outstretched and filled with the last of her chakra. She will not give up, she will _never_ give up, especially not to a pruney old reptile (or is it amphibian?). She forces the chakra into her palms as the first of the swords comes into range—

But the sword is enhanced with a strange, green chakra, and instead of being able to deflect it, the blade slices right through the side of her hand. Hinata strains her eyes and dodges the fast moving blades as best as she can, but the swords whirl like a windstorm; just as one passes her, it turns around and attacks her from behind, and she has no more chakra to use for offense or defense, she can only dodge ineptly on her shaking limbs—

She is nicked on arms and legs, ribbons of bloody gashes and thin lacerations; strange designs of red intersecting lines bloom across her pale skin.

"Give up, child, give up," calls the tortoise. "If you don't, I will kill you."

"No," Hinata whispers, the endless wall of swords hovering on all sides of her quaking body, "I will not give up."

She is going to die here, she realizes; she will have been defeated by an elderly turtle (tortoise), nevermore to see Konoha, or Naruto's eyes as bright as the noon-day sky, or her sensei and her beloved teammates—her real family, for she will not miss her clan besides Neji-niisan. Worst of all, her friends will not know that she is dead, for she is caught in a strange tortoise dimension. No one will mourn her.

She will die and will never see Sasuke's black eyes and black hair. She will never find out the mystery lurking behind his eyes, behind the wakefulness, the numbness, and yet underlying the stone-cold nothingness the dark ocean roiling beneath a moonless sky; she will never know the secrets in that salty water.

She is going to die, she muses, as the swords seem to advance towards her in slow-motion; she is going to die before she has had the chance to live.

She roars her defiance, her body burning with bright blue chakra, even though it is futile, futility of futilities, for her jutsu is not enough to defeat the sorceress's blades and they both know it—

A dark shadow passes in front of her, and she assumes it is death, come to take her to the other side. She closes her eyes and lets her chakra flicker out into the darkness; she does not feel any pain, and she welcomes death like a dark lover, come to take her in his cold embrace.

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><p><em>Please review;) And have a great weekend!<em>


	15. Help

_A/N Happy Passover, Easter Weekend, etc, etc. I'm not really celebrating any of these things, but I do intend to go for a nice nature walk this weekend:)_

_Special thanks to my beta, **Uchiha.S**, who has eyes like a grammar hawk. Thanks also to my wonderful readers and reviewers!_

_Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!_

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><p><strong>Chapter Fifteen: Help<strong>

"_This world is not my home, I'm just a-passing thru,_

_My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue,_

_The angels beckon me from heaven's open door,_

_And I can't feel at home in this world anymore."_

~This World is not my Home, Traditional

When Hinata opens her eyes, she expects to find fluffy white clouds; maybe an angel, maybe a devil. After all, she is not sure where she will end up in the afterlife, and she can't remember any good deeds that she has done on earth to assure her safe passage through the next world. Her vision is blurry, and she has to blink rapidly to clear the water out of her eyes. When her eyes clear though, everything is still dark.

_Perhaps I am in purgatory,_ Hinata muses, pursing her lips in thought. But wait—if she can purse her lips, that means she still has a body; if she still has a body, then she is still alive. She double checks her logic before jumping to conclusions. Is she really alive? She focuses on her body. Reality comes rushing back to her in waves, and she is in pain. A _lot_ of pain. "I'm alive," she croaks. But how?

As if in response to her thoughts, the darkness lifts and reveals itself to be Sasuke. She blinks at him curiously. Why is Sasuke on top of her? Why is his face burnt black, and his arms dark and charred? He smells like singed hair and barbeque. Her mouth opens but no sound comes out.

"Are you all right?" Sasuke barks, his curt tone snapping her out of her muddled thoughts.

"I—I don't know…" she blurts out as Sasuke rises to his feet. He turns around to face the tortoise, and Hinata can see that Sasuke's back is stuck through with hundreds of swords. "Sasuke! Are you—"

"I can't die, remember?" he shouts over his shoulder. "Now get up."

Shaking with the effort, Hinata rolls onto her side, then props herself up on all fours. She tries to get to her feet, but the bright light hurts her eyes, and she sees black spots before collapsing in a heap.

"Hinata!" Sasuke yells.

_He must be annoyed with me,_ Hinata thinks, though her thoughts are as fuzzy as her vision. _He must be annoyed that I'm so weak… _That Sasuke has been hurt on her account horrifies her—never mind that Sasuke cannot feel pain. She knows it doesn't make sense, but she is angry with herself, she is useless, she is—

She is being lifted up; Sasuke's hands are as cold as stone as he hefts her onto his shoulder. "Damn. You're badly injured," he mutters.

"I'm fine," Hinata pants, her vision fading from gray to black. "You shouldn't trouble yourself with…" She cannot finish her sentence, because she falls into unconsciousness; she slumps over on Sasuke's shoulder.

She falls into a world of strange dreams: dancing turtles that pirouette on the pin-end of swords; dreams of falling endlessly through space, somersaulting through the air like an acrobat without ever landing; dreams where she is running, but she does not know who she is running from or where she is running to, only the fact that she is running; that she has to run, or else, or else—

Or else what? She doesn't know, because one nonsensical dream blends seamlessly into the other, and none of them offers her any answers. Just as she is walking out onto a bright ocean, myriad green eyes raise from the waves to regard her, and she is afraid. The eyes are as phosphorescent as glowing jellyfish; the eyes are disembodied, globular, penetrating. As their stares bore into her and make her quiver, a pair of giant, gnarled hands descend from the cloudy sky to grab her.

She bolts upright in bed, panting; her hair is matted to her face with sweat, and her eyes are contracted. She can't see at first.

"Lay down, child! You'll rip out your stitches!"

Hinata blinks, slowly, in the gray light. The voice sounds surprisingly like Lady Tsunade's, but this doesn't look like Konoha hospital. Hinata can hear the sound of the ocean, a dull, undulating roar; she is fairly sure that one cannot hear the ocean from Konoha hospital.

As her eyes adjust to the light, a set of hands gently but firmly push her down onto the bed.

"Did you not hear me? I said, lay down!"

When Hinata's vision finally clears, her mouth grows slack with fear, for the one who is speaking is Erishiki; her webbed hands are pushing Hinata down on a pallet, and her beady eyes stare down at her.

"Where is Sasuke! What have you done with him?" The force in Hinata's voice makes her cough; she rolls over on her side in a fetal position while spasms racks her body. She can feel slick globs dislodging themselves from her throat; they splatter on the white sheets and on her dirty uniform. She opens her eyes and realizes that she is coughing up blood.

When the spasms are over, Hinata rolls onto her back, wheezing. Erishiki is regarding her, but the sorceress's face in inscrutable. And anyway, Hinata has had little practice reading the faces of tortoises; that subject was decidedly not covered during her academy years.

"You are a strange hatchling, Hyuga," the tortoise mutters, turning towards a table.

"Why did you save me?" Hinata whispers, her voice sounding weak even to her own ears.

"It was my whim," Erishiki grumbles, but Hinata does not quite believe her. She has no time for questions though, for a door opens to the small hut, swinging open with brute force.

"Do you have the herbs I asked for, Uchiha-brat?" Erishiki calls in a gruff voice. Hinata's eyes widen; the sorceress really does remind her of Tsunade, in more ways than one.

With a grunt, Sasuke deposits an armful of greenery on the counter. His face and arms are no longer black, and when he turns from Hinata to give Erishiki the herbs, she can see that his back is no longer punctuated by sword wounds. Hinata wonders how long she had been unconscious, wading through the deep waters of dreams.

Sasuke comes to stand next to her bed; she cannot read the look he is giving her. "How are you feeling?" he asks in a harsh whisper.

Hinata shrugs, as if to feign nonchalance, but the movement jostles her wounds; she grimaces. "Like hell," she replies, faintly. And then: "Thank you for saving my life, Uchiha-san."

Sasuke snorts, his mouth twitching up in a wry grin. "Uchiha-san? I'd thought we'd moved on to Sasuke-san. Tch."

"I'm s-sorry," she blurts out, "I've been n-nothing but a—"

"It took no special effort on my part to save you; I do not feel any pain. So stop apologizing, and stop stuttering." He turns abruptly to face Erishiki. "How long until she's healed?"

The tortoise, who has been busy mashing herbs with a mortar and pestle, snorts. "Shut up and let me work, brat."

Sasuke sneers, then exits the hut, leaving Hinata alone with the old tortoise. Hinata is too weak to try to break the silence. Instead, she rests back on her pillows and listens to the dull roar of the ocean.

Hinata closes her eyes and thinks about many things: the first, how is it that Erishiki, a giant tortoise, can fit into such a small hut? On the battlefield, Erishiki was the roughly the size of a two-story building, but now, she is no larger than Hinata. Perhaps Erishiki can change sizes, or… The truth is, Hinata has no idea what tortoise sorceresses are capable of; Erishiki could tell Hinata that the sorceress could fly to the moon and back, and Hinata would believe her.

The second, and more pressing matter on Hinata's mind, is the fact that their lethal enemy is now healing Hinata—why? Hinata ponders this question for a long time, but can find no answers. At some point, she must have fallen asleep, for Erishiki wakes her with a gentle tug.

"Come on then, hatchling. Sit up. That's a girl. Now drink this. It'll taste awful."

Hinata sits up groggily, taking a large ceramic bowl in her hands. As per Erishiki's warning, the brew tastes terribly bitter. Hinata drinks it without complaint, then tilts the bowl up and drinks it to the dregs. "Why are you helping me?" Hinata manages with a whisper, returning the empty bowl to the sorceress's webbed hands.

The tortoise gives her a hooded look before clacking her beak. "It suits my purposes. That's all you need know. Now, you'll feel your chakra coming back to you in just a few moments; I want you to use that chakra to heal your lacerations. You can do that, can't you?"

"Yes…" Hinata replies, a bit dubious. She's never heard of a brew that can return chakra so quickly; but as Erishiki has instructed, in a few moments Hinata can feel her chakra coursing back through her body. With a satisfied sigh, Hinata begins healing the worst of her wounds.

"Don't use up your chakra now, leave the smaller wounds for later. You're good, quite good—who was your sensei?"

Hinata blushes at the praise. "My teacher in medical jutsu was Tsunade-sama," Hinata murmurs, as another one of her wounds hisses closed under her glowing hands.

"Tsunade-sama. Huh. That explains a few things," Erishiki mutters before quickly changing the topic. "Tell me, child, why is it that you've come to help that Mangekyo Sharingan wielder? What reason on this wide, green earth do you have for following him?"

Unbidden, the words roll off of her tongue, the story from beginning to end: her shameful, inept jutsu; the sister who has taken her inheritance, the kunoichi who has taken her true love as a husband. Herself, the ghost who haunted Konoha, while another ghost hid in her pale shadow. The strange quest of the undying looking for death, of evading the Konoha nin who wanted to save Sasuke, the Lightning nin who attacked them.

By the time Hinata finishes her story, Erishiki's eyes are soft. "I see," is all she says. She looks away for a long moment. "I will finish healing your wounds," she states at last, lifting her glowing amphibious hands over Hinata's body, "and then we will have a little talk with the Uchiha. I will help him, after all."

Hinata studies the lines of Erishiki's face, but she cannot divine what the tortoise is thinking. She gets a feeling, though, that Erishiki knows Tsunade, somehow, and that there is more going on here beneath the surface.

"I am glad that you can help him," Hinata murmurs, but it feels like a lie, and her guts twist painfully at the thought. Here, at long last, they have found someone to kill Sasuke, and Hinata is unhappy. She's really not sure why. This has been her sole purpose for the past few weeks, to ferry Sasuke off to the next world. What will she miss about him? His gruff, snide remarks? His total uncaring attitude?

Hinata scoffs at herself. There is no reason to feel upset, she chides herself. She is doing the world a favor—Naruto and Sakura included—by getting rid of an unnatural, undying ninja; it is what he wants, after all, to finally have a deep, unending sleep after being awake for so long.

Yes, Hinata lies to herself, she is relieved that their journey is coming to an end; she is relieved. She ignores the sharp, twisting feeling in her gut and closes her eyes, forcing her mind to be still while Erishiki plies her with healing chakra.

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><p><em>Thanks for reading, and please review:)<em>


	16. Mangekyo

_Squeee! Welcome back my friends! Thanks for all your wonderful reviews and PM's, I'm so glad you are liking this fic!_

_Just FYI, I'm also working on another Hinata-centric story called, **"The Forest."** Check it out if you have too much free time on your hands:) *end of shameless self plugging*_

_Special thanks to **Uchiha.S,** my beta and my inspiration:)_

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><p><strong>Chapter Sixteen: Mangekyo<strong>

"_Rock me to sleep in a cradle of dreams,_

_Sing me a lullaby of leaves,_

_Tuck a cloud up under my chin,_

_Lord blow the moon out, please."_

_~ "Lord Blow the Moon Out" Traditional_

They are sitting around a campfire in a grove of swaying palm trees, their boughs full of heavy fruit. Hinata regards the westering sun casting cadmium over the waves. Erishiki says that it will be good for Hinata to get some fresh air; however, despite the beautiful crimson light that glints off the ocean, despite the cool salty breeze that sighs through her hair, Hinata is on edge.

"Uchiha," Erishiki states after a pregnant silence, "I will help you to end your life."

"Excellent," Sasuke rumbles; he stops reclining against the trunk of a tree and sits up straight. "Let's begin tonight," he commands.

"Brat," Erishiki snaps, clacking her beak, "you are impatient. I know well the jutsu you want me to perform, even without the scroll you've given to me. I could preform that spell in my sleep, with no help from you! Listen closely: it will take me one week to prepare for the ceremony."

"One week!" Sasuke protests, his face darkening.

"You've waited this long to die; surely one week means little to an immortal," Erishiki retorts. It looks like she is arching an eyebrow, but Hinata can't tell in the dim light; besides, she is not sure if tortoises have eyebrows or not.

"It is not that, Erishiki-sama," Hinata whispers, her eyes flickering to meet the sorceress's. "We have pursuers who do not wish us to proceed with our mission…"

"Ever since your rude entry into my world, I've sealed off the portal; no one can get in or out without my express permission. So there. You'll be safe here until the brat dies. Now, for my second piece of business: Hinata, you have been trained in the medical arts, correct? I will need your help."

Hinata nods her head, but she is not sure what she can do. She is an adequate medical ninja, but she's never performed any complicated spell, much less a spell that takes a week to prepare. Feeling anxious, Hinata protests, "But I don't—"

"You know enough to identify herbs, don't you?" Erishiki interrupts. "You can prepare a simple tisane and tincture, can you not? Good," Erishiki mutters at Hinata's hesitant nod, "you will help me."

"What am I supposed to do for a whole week?" Sasuke snarls. His arms are crossed over his chest and his eyebrows are pinched, as if he is suffering from a migraine.

"Think about your place in the universe. Pray. Repent for your sins—" Erishiki begins, but Sasuke cuts her off with a derisive snort. He rises from the ground in a fluid motion and stalks off into the deepening night, his departing footsteps muffled by the sand.

"Please f-forgive Sasuke-san for being so r-rude," Hinata says, her eyes trailing on the ground, her hands twitching nervously. She fears that Sasuke's petulant outburst has offended their hostess.

Hinata takes a deep breath and continues, more steadily, "I do not think Sasuke-san believes in praying; I believe that he is certain that he is heading straight to h-hell." Hinata ends in a whisper. She is not sure how she knows this information about Sasuke, only that she does; she firmly believes that it is true.

"It matters little, hatchling." Erishiki levels her a deep, long look, and Hinata shrinks under her scrutiny. "Come then," Erishiki calls with a click of her beak, "you must be hungry."

"No, I'm fine," Hinata mumbles, not wanting to cause any bother, but her stomach grumbles as if it has a mind of its own.

Erishiki laughs, a low whining sound. "You are a curious one, hatchling, always saying things you don't really mean for the sake of others." She gives Hinata another one of those inscrutable, hawkish stares, and orders her to wait by the fire. Erishiki waddles slowly to the water's edge.

Hinata is too tired to move, anyway. She leans against the striated trunk of a palm tree, wishing she had the energy to walk up the tree and pluck a coconut from the fronds. At least Erishiki is better company than Sasuke, even with her penetrating glares and her cryptic answers. While Sasuke is sullen and silent, Erishiki is ponderous but kind, and quite talkative once she gets going. But the latter might be due to the fact that the tortoise hasn't had human visitors in a long, long time—and if she has, she has probably killed the intruders with her fearsome magics.

Hinata blinks at her incongruous thoughts. She still does not know why Erishiki has not killed her, why she has instead rescued Hinata from the wounds Erishiki herself has inflicted. Another contradiction occurs to Hinata: Erishiki is supposed to be a professional Mangekyo Sharingan killer. Why then did Erishiki initially protest helping Sasuke, then claimed she would kill him in battle, then did _not_ kill him, but instead promised him an assisted suicide in a week's time?

Hinata's head spins; this does not make any sense at all. "Lost in thought, hatchling?" Erishiki mumbles around a mouth full of something, waddling back towards the campfire.

Hinata comes to with a start, her eyes fluttering open. "Y-yes," Hinata replies haltingly. She sits up straight, watching as Erishiki opens her beak-like mouth and three large fish fall out.

"Come on then, help me skewer the fish. It's much easier with human hands, and besides, I can't eat this stuff myself. This is all for you!"

Hinata protests that she cannot possibly eat so much fish, but once the catch is skewered and slow roasted by the fire, she surprises herself by devouring every last one, sucking the small bones clean. When she finishes, she has a pang of guilt. "I should have saved one for Sasuke-san…" she murmurs.

"Don't be ridiculous," the tortoise retorts. "The Uchiha doesn't need to eat, and what he does consume, he cannot taste." Erishiki pounds another coconut in two with her foot, slurping up the juice before it runs into the sand.

"He— That can't be true," Hinata whispers. She sucks on her greasy fingers, her eyes clouded in thought. "He ate regular meals with me—"

"If he did, it was just to make you feel comfortable," Erishiki says with a snort, her wrinkled face covered in flecks of coconut meat. "He doesn't need to eat, though he can; he takes no pleasure from it. Do you really know nothing of his curse?"

Hinata shakes her head slowly from side to side. "Sasuke-san is… He's…"

"He's a laconic bastard," the tortoise interjects. "That much I've gathered." Erishiki spares her a small smile. "Listen well hatchling, that you might be more determined to help your friend."

The tortoise snaps up the last of the coconut meat, then tosses the shells into the fire. The husks make a damp hissing noise before going up in sweet-smelling smoke.

Erishiki begins, "The Mangekyo Sharingan does not become a curse of eternal life, at least not at first. The curse is the result of a confluence of two jutsu used in conjunction with each other: the Mangekyo Sharingan, if used to reanimate the dead, will bring eternal unlife upon the wielder."

"But—why?" Hinata breathes. And then: "Does it have to do with the Sharingan being able to copy jutsu?"

Erishiki smiles warmly at that. "You are a lot sharper than you make yourself out to be, my hatchling. Yes, it does. When a wielder of the Mangekyo—the highest form of the Sharingan, cursed be its inept creator!—uses the reanimation jutsu, the Sharingan eyes themselves learn the secret to staying alive. And this process takes place automatically, even if the user does not wish to live; it is almost as if the Sharingan eyes have a life of their own, and act of their own accord to preserve their life."

Hinata rubs her temples, straining to comprehend such strange information. "It's like a computer," Hinata manages at last. She does not have much experience with the electronic equipment at the hospital, but she has had to use it from time to time. "If a virus gets into the system, the computer will process in a certain way, even if the person trying to run a program tells it not to."

"Hatchling, you are quick enough—I'm surprised you are not a tortoise. You are exactly right. The Sharingan automatically assimilates the jutsu and applies it towards self-preservation. When death strikes, the jutsu is activated, and the Mangekyo wielder becomes undead."

Hinata worries her lower lip, lost in thought. At last, she ventures, "So. Once they become undead…besides not eating or sleeping, what's so bad about it? Why do you call it a curse, Erishiki-sama?"

"The Uchiha really hasn't told you a thing, has he?" Erishiki mutters with a snort. "It's because life itself no longer has any enjoyment. Food tastes like sawdust scrapings, for there is no sense of taste or smell. Sex has no pleasure, for what little sense of touch there may be is mostly numb. And worst of all, the memories they have—remembrances both positive and negative—well, the memories stay, but the feelings fade."

"But—that's not true!" Hinata blurts out, then blushes. "I mean—it's hard to explain, but I was able to sense Sasuke-san's emotions once, and I _felt_ things. _He_ felt things." She thinks back to Sasuke's swirling thoughts about Sakura, the terrible longing and grief that she had briefly been privy to.

"That may be true, hatchling, but eventually those feelings will fade. I'm sure he's already experienced many of his emotions fading, leaching from his memories like the colors from an old photograph. Do you understand now, Hinata-chan?"

Hinata looks into Erishiki's dark eyes with rising horror. She closes her eyes and tries to imagine it, life without any flavor or color: living forever, watching friends she once cared about—that she must have loved, once, though she can't quite remember it clearly—her friends, living life, growing older, dying, while Hinata watches like a still statue.

Erishiki breaks into Hinata's thoughts with a soft chuckle. "You were hesitant to help him, before—I saw it in your eyes. You feel an affection towards the man, even in his current state. You are a kind, empathetic girl, and you are as intelligent as you are beautiful; that is why I know I can count on you to help me rid the world of the last undead Uchiha."

Hinata nods her head and looks down at the sand, tears falling into her open hands. "Yes ma'am. I will help you," Hinata whispers at last.

Erishiki chuckles again, then ushers Hinata back into bed with a bowl full of the bitter herbal brew. "Sleep now, and be well, hatchling; for tomorrow we begin the preparations."

Hinata falls into a deep sleep. When she wakes in the morning, she remembers dreaming of white birds flying across the face of the moon, and she smiles. It feels like a good omen.

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><p><em>an lol, hang on to your hats kids, because things are going to pick up next chapter!_

_Reviews are always appreciated;)_


	17. Water

_Welcome back friends, and sorry for the long wait! You can thank my beta, **Uchiha.S,** for this update; despite being ridiculously busy, she made time to beta this because she is awesome:) Thanks Uchiha.S-chan!_

_Short plug: working on a set of Karin one-shots called **"Phosphorus Burns."** It's my first time attempting Karin fic, so I'd love love love your input, if you feel so inclined. (End of plug.)  
><em>

_Without further ado, thanks so much for being such kick-ass readers and reviewers, and here is the next chappy! xoxoxoxo!_

_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Published to "Such Great Heights" by Iron & Wine~~~  
><em>

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><p><strong>Chapter Seventeen: Water<strong>

"_Down in some lone valley in some lonesome place,_

_Where the wild birds do whistle and their notes do increase;_

_Farewell, pretty Saro, I'll bid you adieu,_

_And I'll dream of you wherever I go."_

_~ "Pretty Saro" Traditional_

Hinata is tired but pleased, her arms full of fragrant herbs. It has been a long morning for Hinata, who has roamed out over the distant fields to find herbs with strange names and equally strange properties. She buries her face in her bouquet; the musky sweet smell is like an embrace.

Silently, her feet slip through the long meadow grasses as the thick salt fog billows around her; it is like walking through an endless dream. When the midmorning sun burns the fog off, she realizes that she is close to the shore.

Hinata gazes out towards the costal bluffs, musing how she has hardly seen Sasuke for days. He is like a shadow darting in and out of her vision; she can see him sometimes, appearing over the bluffs or walking out over the ocean, but only for a moment before he fades out of sight once more. Hinata is uncertain as to why he is avoiding her, but she tells herself that Sasuke has the right to spend the last days of his life as he sees fit (though she is unhappy about it). She runs her hands idly through her thick bundle of herbs as she approaches the home of the sorceress.

"You found the herbs then, hatchling?" Erishiki calls from the tiny cabin before Hinata even enters. Hinata wonders, briefly, if Erishiki has sensory jutsu…

"Yes, Erishiki-sama," Hinata replies, opening the door. A bitter, acrid smell assaults her nose, making her eyes water.

"Oh, these fumes aren't good for humans," the sorceress airily calls. "Leave your bundle here and go take a walk, Hinata-chan. Be back by sunset."

Sputtering and coughing, Hinata quickly leaves her herbs on the table and runs out of the hut. It takes a few moments for her eyes to clear. After getting ahold of herself, Hinata stands in place, not sure what to do; it has been a long time since she's had free time.

"I suppose I should practice my jutsu," Hinata thinks aloud. There is a waterfall not far off that runs into an estuary; that will be the perfect place. With no one here to watch her, there is no reason why she can't practice her water jutsu—unlike in Konoha.

Back in Konoha, there had been two main reasons why she had been disinherited as the eldest: the first reason is one she does not speak or even think about—it is too painful, and it is the reason why Naruto cannot love her.

The second reason is her elemental affinity: water. Most gentle-fist-style users have techniques based in fiery chakra that burns their opponents, or lightning style that zaps internal organs; more rare and prized are wind-style users, whose elemental chakra rends the insides of their opponents with cutting precision.

On the other hand, those with water-based chakra can never be geniuses of the Hyuga clan: where their chakra should cut, it molds; where it should slice, it flows. Because of her elemental affinity, it is difficult to kill her opponents in battle—it is something she finds to be quite a relief, for she does not enjoy killing; but at the same time, it brings shame upon herself and her clan. Hinata is a ninja who is not adept at murder.

She is skilled in disabling opponents, freezing their chakra, bending her mutable technique to meet the needs of each unique enemy. She is also quite skilled at medical ninjutsu, though her father never permitted her to go into intensive training with Tsunade-sama.

Hinata is also an accomplished scout, as her former teammates can attest. Her eyes see as well and as far as any with the Byakugan, and she has found things that others have lost, or could not see. She takes in information with her eyes, analyzes it with her mind, and plans with deliberate decision for the best possible outcome—an outcome with the least amount of bloodshed.

But she has botched too many assassination missions with her ANBU squad; she is too slow when sparring with Neji; and when it comes to Hanabi, well… Thoughts of Hanabi inevitably lead her to her memories of the war.

She does not like to think about the war.

Somehow, as she is lost in her lachrymose thoughts, her feet bring her to the base of the waterfall. She stretches out her hand and lets the cold water fall over her fingers. Unbidden, the bitter memories bubble up within her, and though she tries her best to suppress them, they break free.

She remembers when Uchiha Sasuke appeared on the battlefield. She had been in a scouting unit with Neji-niisan, lashing out at zombies with a single-minded intensity. But then, her all-seeing eyes had seen the Uchiha emerge like a wraith before Naruto and Sakura.

Hinata's heart had leapt into her mouth as Naruto and Sakura had charged the Uchiha—Hinata could see Naruto's low chakra reserves. He was already depleted from his battle with Uchiha Madara, and Hinata was frightened, for Sakura by herself was no match for a Mangekyo wielder.

Hinata confuses past and present, and the memory replays itself in her mind as if it is happening all over again. She can hear Neji-niisan's voice ringing in her ears, telling her to stop running—but Hinata can't stop, she loves Naruto, she won't lose him, she would rather die than live in a world without him—

But Sasuke does not fight back against his former teammates—instead, he is subsumed in jutsu. And Hinata, whose vision tunnels in on Naruto, has lost track of the danger surrounding her on all sides. When Hinata is certain that Naruto is all right, she looks up, only to find that she is encircled by the enemy; the sky is blackened by fists and swords and kunai and maliciously glowing jutsu—

There is a burst of blue light, and the armies of the undead all stumble back with groans. When Hinata raises her eyes, Hanabi is standing over her, her opalescent eyes filled with nothing but disgust for her older sister.

Hinata blinks, bringing herself back to the present, but tears stain her vision. Hanabi should not have been there, Hinata thinks to herself; her sister had been too young to join in the war effort. Hinata supposes she should be thankful, as Hanabi had saved her life, but nothing but resentment colors these memories. Truthfully, Hinata would have rather died than to bear the shame that resulted from that misguided, unguarded moment.

Hinata wipes away the tears with the heels of her hands, furious at herself. She strips down to her underwear, casting away her clothes on a dry rock, then plunges into the ice cold water, letting the shock of her entry banish the unwanted memories. What a blessing it would be, Hinata thinks miserably, if the dismal pain of her memories were washed clean, with nothing in their place but cool recollections, free of emotional charge.

She plunges under the water, letting it rinse her useless, repetitive thoughts away from her. It is a true luxury to practice her water-jutsu techniques in the estuary, for the water feels like a second home to her; a return to a salty womb. She gathers her chakra around her body with a power born from anger and frustration, and she rips through the surface of the water with a roar.

The water itself seems to groan as she forces it upwards in a column, then sends it crashing back down with a huge splash. The sun shines through the spray, casting rainbow beads in the air. Hinata runs and slides on the water's surface, heading down the narrow neck of river towards the ocean.

She moves over the waves with deft motions, and it truly feels more like flying than swimming. There is no room for circuitous thought, no room for the memories that haunt her; there is only her body as she sluices through the endless ocean, her chakra that thrusts up through the waves, creating spiraling towers that reach the sun before crashing back down into the sea with tsunami-like waves.

By the time she vents all of her frustration, her body is freezing. She paddles to the shore with numb limbs, floating on the waves in contentment. The waves of the sea are like the echo of her heart beat, the push-pull of electrical impulses made tangible; the invisible hand of the moon drawing forth that which was hidden.

At last, the waves wash her ashore; she flops down on the warm sand, panting heavily.

"That's some jutsu."

Hinata, who had been laying with her eyes closed, totally relaxed in the warm rays of late-morning sun, opens her eyes and sits up with a start. Too late, she realizes that she is clad only in her white underclothes, which cling to her body damply. She feels herself flushing from the tips of her ears to the end of her toes, and not from Sasuke's praise.

Sasuke sighs, as if weary, and closes his eyes. "I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, but I have no sexual response. I'm undead. There is no need to fear for your modesty." But when Sasuke opens his eyes, he finds that Hinata has performed a quick henge, and has created the illusion of clothing around her body.

Hinata's eyes are wide, but once she is decently clothed, her embarrassment recedes somewhat. "Uchiha-s-san," she stutters, "undead or n-not, it is impolite t-to—"

"Spare me the lecture," he cuts in. "Do you want me to teach you water-style jutsu or not?"

"T-teach m-me?" Hinata mumbles in disbelief. "Wha—"

But Sasuke has already activated his Sharingan; he steps onto the water with fluid grace and forms a series of hand-signs. At his command, twin water dragons rise from the foam and stare at them with crystalline eyes. "Your jutsu is impressive, but your form is sloppy. Come on, get off your ass and learn something," he snaps.

Hinata rises on shaky legs. "O-okay…" And then, when she's recovered herself some more, she mumbles, "T-thank you. Sasuke-san."

"Hn," is his only reply as he dispels the jutsu and repeats the hand-signs, this time with slow movements so that Hinata can copy them.

By the time they are done, Hinata is panting with effort, and does not realize that her henge has faded, that she is practicing jutsu half-naked. When she does finally see that her illusion is gone, she has the fortitude not to blush; instead, she strides to the rock where her clothes are and admonishes Sasuke to turn around while she changes.

"Sasuke-kun, why are you teaching me jutsu?" she murmurs as she replaces her clothing.

She can see his broad back quivering, as if from suppressed laughter. "You're helping me—this is something I can give you in return. I do not want to have the weight of a debt hanging over my head. And since when did I become Sasuke-_kun?_" he mocks, though his voice is not entirely unkind.

Hinata doesn't reply to that, because her blush has come back with a vengeance, and she can't decide whether to be grateful to this man, or to drop a round-house kick on him while his back is turned. She wrings the water out of her hair with a grimace. "I'll c-call you w-what ever I w-wish," she shoots back, trying to sound haughty but failing miserably. She laughs at the absurdity, a ringing sound that has a hint of hysteria in it.

Sasuke smirks. "I will join you for dinner tonight."

Hinata nods, wiping her eyes on her sleeve, though this time, the tears on her face are from laughter. "I would like that. But why…?" Why tonight, when he has been avoiding her steadily for the past few days?

Sasuke shoots her a cryptic look then strides forward, expecting her to follow. With a start, Hinata remembers.

It is their sixth night in this strange place. Tomorrow, the spell will be ready to cast, and Sasuke will finally die.

Hinata falls in behind Sasuke, her former mirth lost in a wave of complicated emotions she cannot—and does not—want to name.

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><p><em>Thanks for reading! Please review:)<em>


	18. Full Moon

_Hey friends, welcome back! Sorry for the long wait, but my most excellent beta, **Uchiha.s, **had finals. Out of the kindness of her heart, despite the fact that her brain was overloaded with finals, she beta'd this fic for your reading pleasure-thanks Uchiha.s!_

_In other news, the wonderful **Hinata6** was nice enough to blog about this fic, which made me squeal with delight. I feel famous:) If you'd like to check it out, it's up at _

_nintasticreviewer. blogspot 2012/04/better-off-dead-fan-fiction-sunday. html_

_minus the annoying spaces of doom._

_Without further ado, I love you all, and thanks so much for your reviews! I will personally thank each and every one of you after I build my veggie box this afternoon:) xoxoxo!_

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><p>Chapter Eighteen: <strong>Full Moon<strong>

"The goddamn thing won't budge!" Naruto snarls, his army of clones disappearing on the ground with many _poofs_ and _pops_. Around him, a legion of ANBU are wheezing, having exhausted their own jutsu.

Sakura clenches her hands into fists. "We can't give up, Naruto—we've come this far," she mutters, stepping forward with fists flaming. She is tired too, her chakra levels are low, but she will not—cannot—give up. With an inchoate roar, she pummels the opalescent wall, but for something that looks so insubstantial, the shield does not waver at all under Sakura's punishing assault.

It is not long before Sakura, too, joins the ranks of winded ANBU. "I just need to rest," she pants, "then I'll have another go at it." Her voice teeters on hysterical, and her eyes are wide and unfocused.

Naruto grits his teeth in consternation. It has been difficult enough to find Sasuke's circuitous and booby-trapped path through the wild, rocky hillsides of Lightning Country; now all that separates Naruto and Sasuke is a thin, glassy shield. It's maddening, because Naruto can _feel_ Sasuke's chakra; he knows that Sasuke is just beyond the barrier, which wavers like a heat mirage and is harder than adamantine.

"I have an idea, Sakura-chan," Naruto murmurs, leaning heavily against a gnarled pine tree. "I'm going to see if going into Kyubi mode will do something."

Naruto cracks his knuckles and looks up at the sky; the moon is just starting to rise in the east, while the sun is dying in blood-orange light in the west. But the beauty of the sunset is lost on Naruto, whose own body flames to life with the terrible demon chakra. Somehow, he knows, he _knows,_ that if they don't make it through this barrier soon, it will be too late.

"I'm coming for you, Sasuke-bastard!" Naruto roars, tearing at the magical barrier with claws and teeth and demon fire. The ANBU back up, out of the range of the Hokage's flames, but Sakura stands still, illuminated by the orange and red flames like a votive statue, her hands laced together on her breast, as if in prayer. She will believe in Naruto.

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><p>"Erishiki-sama, are you all right?" Hinata asks around a mouth full of fish. The tortoise's features are pinched, and she has stopped eating with a pained, gurgling sound.<p>

Erishiki coughs once, twice, then shakes her head slowly from side to side. "Hatchling, you never did tell me who your pursuers were—the ones who do not wish us to proceed." She spears Hinata with a glare.

Hinata flushes under the scrutiny and mumbles, "Ah…er…you see, they are…ah…"

"They are Uzumaki Naruto and Haruno Sakura," Sasuke finishes for her, his fish untouched on his skewer. His expression is masked, but his hands are tense where they lay in his lap.

There is a thick silence that settles on the company. The fire pops with resin, the far-off shore birds make mournful sounds, but Hinata can only hear the rush of blood in her ears.

Finally, Erishiki rumbles, "So. The Hokage—the Jinchuriki of the Nine-Tailed Fox and the Legendary Toad Sage; along with his wife, the Godaime's apprentice. And if I'm not mistaken…" Erishiki squeezes her eyes shut before muttering, "There's also an entire battalion of ANBU."

"Shit," Hinata breathes. Her palms grow clammy, she prepares herself for Erishiki's anger: surely the sorceress would not have taken them in if she had known that their foes were such powerful ninja.

Erishiki takes a deep, slow breath and opens her beady eyes. "Listen well: I was going to wait until dawn to do this spell. However, that is no longer possible. The Hokage and his ilk are battering down my shields, slowly but surely, and even an all-powerful sorceress like myself can't hold out forever against the likes of him.

"I still need time to prepare the ceremony. Go and keep a vigil, Sasuke-brat, Hinata-chan, and watch the rising of the full moon. When it reaches its zenith, come to me; the spell shall be ready by then. Go!"

Hinata's dinner falls from nerveless fingers. She rises to follow Sasuke, though she does not know where they are going to keep their so-called vigil. What is a vigil, anyway? Is it some kind of ritual, a time to gaze at the moon and divine its secrets? A sleepless and somber sentinel where time creeps, too-slow and too-fast, all at once?

Sasuke leads her through a meadow of tall grasses which sigh in their passing, then up a rocky bluff, all sharp edges and crumbling sandstone. This must be the place where Sasuke has disappeared to over the past week. It is tall enough where he can see the land below him on all sides, but slanted in such a way that he would be impossible to see from the ground. Hinata muses wryly that Sasuke is a better stalker than she.

Sasuke sits down on a level bit of rock. In his hands is a great bundle of branches, which he arranges in an airy, triangular shape before lighting it with a simple katon. With some hesitation, Hinata sits on the other side of the fire and looks out over the sea. The ghostly image of the full moon glints on the glassy edge where the ocean meets the shore, making the strand gleam silver.

"Here," Sasuke mutters as he shoves something into her hands: it is her mess kit. Hinata undoes the draw-string chord with deft movements and removes her tea paraphernalia without comment. She commences to boil water from the canteen strapped to her hip.

"Sasuke-san," she murmurs as she passes him a cup of Lapsang Souchong tea, the steam swirling silver in the moonlight, "you cannot taste tea."

"Hn." He takes the cup and sips, without fear of burning his tongue.

"So…why?" Hinata ventures, pouring her own cup of tea and staring into the surface of the cup. Her own, argent image is reflected back to her, her bleached eyes blinking down at herself through a curtain of silver steam.

After a long pause, Sasuke takes another sip of tea and smirks. "If I answer your question, then you will answer one of mine."

Hinata cocks her head to the side, a quizzical, bird-like motion. "Okay." She has a feeling that she is making a bad deal, though she's not sure why; she feels like Tsunade making one of her fabled, ill-fated poker bets. She ignores her sense of foreboding and looks up at Sasuke through the blue smoke of the camp fire.

"When I was alive," Sasuke begins, his voice thick, slow, and sonorous, "I enjoyed tea. I enjoyed it very much." Sasuke looks out over the sea and cups his hands around his tea. "When I watch you—how you enjoy your tea—I am able to remember… I remember what it's like to be alive."

Hinata blinks owlishly at Sasuke's silvered profile, trying to comprehend what he's just told her. "So that time I was mad at you? And I made you drink Earl Grey tea…?"

Sasuke turns to look at her, a wry grin twisting his lips. One half of his face is bathed in red light from the fire, the other is painted with blue-silver shadows; it makes him look like a strange statue of a god, what with his aristocratic nose and high cheek bones rendered in the ethereal light of the fire and full moon.

Perhaps, Hinata muses into the ensuing silence, perhaps Sasuke could be The-God-Who-Smirks; or more apt, The-God-Who-Dies, The-God-Who-Cannot-Die-And-Wishes-To-Die. Hinata wishes she had a camera to capture Sasuke's face then, all silvered and rutilant, his eyes dancing with sardonic humor and his head tilted down towards her, sharing an inside joke.

"I do not enjoy Earl Grey tea because you do not enjoy Earl Gray tea," he states simply, taking a deliberate sip of tea.

Hinata laughs then, a ringing, hawkish sound that echoes among the cliffs like a strange call. It startles the roosting sea birds, who leave their perches with indignant squawks; they alight and wheel in the air like winged wraiths, their white feathers bleached by the moonlight.

The wind is full of sharp bird cries, and Hinata laughs even harder, harder, until tears blur her vision and she has trouble breathing. A sound startles her then, a low, rumbling sound that breaks into a bark: it is Sasuke, who is also laughing. It startles Hinata, who has never heard her undead companion laugh like this. The laughter is not scathing, nor does it have any hint of maliciousness; instead it is free and airy like the whirling birds winging above their heads.

At last, the birds retreat to their nests and Hinata gets herself under control once more. By the time she catches her breath and wipes her eyes free of tears, Sasuke has already returned to his impassive mask, with not even a hint of his former mirth. Hinata looks up at the moon, which has risen about halfway in the sky, and her merriment leaves her as well. Soon…

Hinata wants to tell Sasuke that she will miss him—she would mean it, too. She hasn't laughed like this since her first missions with Team Eight, the first time she left her father's omnipresent scrutiny and had a taste of friendship and freedom. She wants to tell Sasuke that he has become a friend to her, but she knows she cannot tell him.

Sasuke is a man who does not like to be fettered, either to the past, or to people. She knows, if she tells him the things percolating in her heart, that she will ruin the moment, and he will stalk off. So instead, she raises her cup of tea, leans over, and clinks Sasuke's cup with her own.

"Cheers," she murmurs, her voice breaking into the melancholic silence that has bloomed between them.

Sasuke smirks. "Cheers," he replies gruffly, sipping his tea and eyeing her mockingly over the rim of his cup. Hinata schools her face to remain impassive and drinks her own tea, though she does sigh in satisfaction when the hot liquid runs down her throat and soothes her frazzled nerves. The last bits of chocolatey steam curl around her face; she closes her eyes in contentment.

"My turn," Sasuke mutters, and the abruptness of it almost makes Hinata choke on her tea. "There is one thing I could never figure out about you, Hyuga."

"Hmm?" Hinata tries to mask her surprise at the question, but feels that she is failing miserably.

"Why were you always chasing after the Idiot, but whenever he expressed interest in you, you would run away like a frightened squirrel? You love him. Why do you always run away and run after him? It doesn't make any sense."

It is the most Sasuke has ever spoken to her at one time in their entire acquaintance, and Hinata is afraid, because the answer is one she has never spoken out loud, one she does not even think about. It is her deepest wound.

When she is silent for too long, Sasuke mutters, "I've got my right to an answer; you promised." His reasoning sounds a bit petulant to her, but he is right; Hinata did promise. Sasuke continues, wryly, "Besides, I'll be dead before the dawn. I'll take your secret to the grave—literally."

Hinata runs a hand through her hair, her eyebrows cinched in anxiety. "I've never told anybody…"

"So I'll be the first and the last," Sasuke replies without any inflection. "Out with it."

Hinata looks out at the moon and the sea, filled with dread and longing and other vile, unnamable emotions that she has ignored and suppressed for so long. Perhaps, she thinks, perhaps Sasuke is right. Her secret will be safe with him, and besides, who else could possibly understand?

She has a feeling that Sasuke, freak-of-nature that he is, might be the only one who _can_ understand. Emboldened by Sasuke's revelation about the tea, about their strange yet solid connection—their friendship, Hinata admits to herself—she opens her mouth and the long-concealed words fall out:

"I—I am infertile."

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><p><em>an please review;)_


	19. Spell

_a/n Sorry for the delay everyone! My beta, **Uchiha.s,** is graduating in like a week, so it was hard for her to beta. Nevertheless, she took time out of her mad schedule to beta, and for that, we are all thankful! Thanks Uchiha.s! You rock!_

_Thanks also to my amazing readers and reviewers; I can't tell you how thankful I am for all of your wonderful encouragement. Every time I get a review, I grin a shit-eating grin and do a dance. No fucking kidding :D I will thank each and every one of you, personally, as soon as I can:)_

_**In terms of my schedule**, I will do my best to get the next chappy to you as soon as I can, but like I said, my poor, overworked beta is just about to graduate, with all the stress and excitement that brings. As for myself, I have some web designing projects that are going to monopolize my time these next few weeks, on top of doing a-story-a-day-in-may contest (you should google that, it's awesome) as well as gearing up for camp NaNoWriMo this June! So please be patient with me; I promise I will update as soon as I can, which hopefully won't be longer than two weeks! _

_Without further ado...!_

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><p><strong>Chapter Nineteen: <strong>**Spell**

"_In my time of dying, want nobody to mourn;_

_All I want for you to do is take my body home._

_Well, well, well, so I can die easy,_

_Well, well, well, so I can die easy,_

_Jesus, gonna make you my dyin' bed."_

_~In My Time of Dying, Traditional_

After Hinata speaks, silence ensues. She cannot hear the roar of the ocean below them, or the crackling of the fire, or even the sigh of the evening breeze; every fiber in her body is taut as she waits for Sasuke's scathing reply—his condemnation.

This is why she has kept the words bottled up for so long, for she knows what her father has already said: _failure, failure, failure. _Hinata can not be heir without the ability to breed further heirs. She was a fool through and through, her father had said, for battling Pain by herself; the battle left her with massive scar tissue over her chest, and more subtle damage to her womb that hadn't been corrected until it was too late.

There had been too much happening, after the battle with Pain and the destruction of Konoha. Her periods became irregular, then stopped altogether for a few months. Then, her cycle returned with cramps no pain-killer could soothe before stopping once more, this time for over three months. She knew something was wrong, but she didn't end up going to a doctor until much, much later. There was no time; Konoha was at war.

It was only when Hinata was admitted into the hospital after the epic zombie war against Madara that she had ordered the tests as an afterthought. That was when the extensive damage to her reproductive system was discovered—damage that could no longer be corrected.

There are only two people in Konoha, besides herself, who know about her infertility problem: her father, and Lady Tsunade, who ran the medical tests herself. It's ironic, really, because Hinata's futile, selfish actions to save Naruto from Pain have cost her dearly, and Naruto will never, _never_ know.

But now Sasuke knows—she feels vulnerable, like she's let down her armor and she's _asking_ him to stab her. For Kami's sake, even her own father had acted with disgust when he found that his eldest daughter was, truly, _good for nothing._ She waits for the blow, her eyes squeezed shut, her arms pulling her knees in tight towards her chest.

The blow never comes.

The wind sighs, the fire crackles, the ocean waves groan below them.

"So you're infertile. What's the big deal?"

Hinata's melancholy evaporates and is replaced by anger. "What's the big deal?" she whispers, before her voice grows louder. "What's the big deal? I'll tell you what the big deal is!" Her eyes flash and she sits up straight as she shouts at Sasuke, "I can't be the Hyuga heir if I'm infertile! And I can't marry the bloody Hokage! And Naruto—"

Her voice falters after that, she cannot manage another word; the flare of anger fades as abruptly as it came, and she slumps down over her knees.

"And Naruto always wanted a big family," Sasuke mutters in disgust. Hinata closes her eyes and sees all of Naruto's children, who look like Sakura; Hinata's stomach roils.

"Did you ever tell the Idiot?" Sasuke ventures, breaking into her thoughts.

"N-no, I couldn't, I—"

"So instead you ran away from him," Sasuke states. It is not accusatory, but rather an observation.

"I am a coward," Hinata replies shakily, her head bowed. "I—"

"You don't give yourself enough credit," Sasuke snaps. "You're always sacrificing your own happiness for other people; you lie to them to spare their feelings. What's the point? Listen, Hinata. When you go back to Konoha, re-enlist and take a mission to Mist."

"I-I'm not allowed to go to M-mist, my f-father f-forbids—"

"Horse shit," Sasuke snarls. "You're no longer the heir to the Hyuga, right?" Hinata shakes her head no. "So then you are no longer beholden to your clan—you can go anywhere you want, at the discretion of your Hokage."

"But—Mist?"

"The crime in Mist has gotten worse since the war. Too many of their ninja died, and they haven't been able to get control of the crime syndicates. They can use someone like you—someone skilled in water jutsu, someone with a powerful ocular doujutsu—to ferret out the criminals. They are also short staffed on medical personnel; you've had personal training with Tsunade, and with a legendary sorceress."

"W-what are you saying?" Hinata whispers. "Why—"

"Make a name for yourself. Fuck the Hyuga, fuck Naruto, fuck all of it. You're an exemplary kunoichi, and if Konoha is too blind to see that, then it's their loss."

"O-oh." Hinata raises her head and looks at Sasuke, but his eyes are turned away from her, gazing out at the ocean. It is quiet except for the wind and the water as Hinata chews over what Sasuke has said.

He's right; by the gods and spirits, he's right. So she can't fight in the proper gentle-fist style—so what? She can practice her water jutsu and her medical ninjutsu until she's strong enough; she can play on her strengths and carve a place for herself in the shinobi world. So she can't have children—so what? Most shinobi don't live long enough to be baby-making factories like Sakura and Hanabi, anyway. If Hinata can use her medical jutsu to save children, to save lives—

Well, that's just as good, isn't it?

"Any civilian woman—any cow—can breed," Sasuke sneers. "You're worth twenty Sakuras and fifty Hanabis. Do you understand?"

Hinata nods her head. "Yes. I—I think I do," Hinata whispers.

"Good." Sasuke rises and brushes himself off. "There's one more thing I want to teach you: the most coveted water jutsu from Mist. Are you ready?"

Hinata smiles, a smile that banishes all the demons and memories that have haunted her until this moment. "Yes, sir!"

Sasuke snorts. "Good. Pay attention, because we don't have much time." He channels chakra into his feet and speeds down the sheer cliff side. Hinata follows suit and flies after him, down the bluffs and out towards the ocean.

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><p>Hinata is shivering; her hair is wet and clings to her neck, her clothes are all stiff with sea water. She hardly notices though, for the moon has reached its highest point in the sky—there is no more time.<p>

"Remember everything I've taught you," Sasuke says impatiently. "And stop being such a doormat; Naruto's an idiot and Sakura is an annoying airhead. Speaking of them… Here, take this." He shoves two sealed scrolls into Hinata's hands, then turns away from her and strides towards Erishiki's hut, leaving Hinata with the slightly damp scrolls.

They seem to gleam in the moonlight, one marked for Sakura and one for Naruto, each written in painstakingly neat handwriting. She stows them away in the folds of her shirt and jogs after Sasuke, her muscles weary, her breath fogging the cold night air. Though the scrolls are only paper, they seem to weigh her down.

Erishiki is seated by the entrance to her hut, deep in meditation; even without her Byakugan activated, Hinata can practically see the chakra flowing into the tortoise.

Erishiki is a sage of nature chakra; this what makes a sorceress. "People call you a witch when they don't understand your jutsu," the tortoise had remarked to Hinata on one of her first days here. "I draw my magic in from the elements; other people take it from themselves. I'm called a sorceress, you're called a ninja; in essence, it's all the same."

But Hinata has seen Naruto's Sage Mode jutsu, and though Erishiki's nature chakra is similar, it is also very, very different. Naruto's nature chakra feels like wind, like breath; Erishiki's chakra feels stronger, like she's wielding the fire of the sun itself. A faint burning smell surrounds Erishiki, and the sand seems to glow yellow from the light around her.

"There's no time, no time," the sorceress calls. "Come quickly, Hinata-chan, aid me in the spell; and you, Uchiha-brat, stand in the middle of the circle."

Hinata is about to ask what circle Erishiki is talking about, when the ground itself groans, and a design of white stones emerges from the earth. It is shaped in a spiral symbol, with a circle in the very center. Unperturbed, Sasuke strides towards the center, while Hinata scurries to Erishiki's side.

The tortoise hands her a large bowl filled with a black paste; Hinata knows what to do. With sure fingers, she smudges the stuff on the rocks, drawing strange characters until the surface of the rocks are covered in black geometric patterns.

"Let's begin, for I won't be able to keep your friends out for much longer. Any last words, Uchiha-brat?"

"No," Sasuke states without any inflection. "I'm ready."

Hinata blinks at Sasuke, his form still and silvered by the moonlight; she has so much she wants to say, and no idea of how to say it.

"Hinata-hatchling? You want to say anything?" Erishiki asks, catching her gaze.

"I—just—thank you, Sasuke-kun. For everything." The tears well up then, but Hinata turns away and stands beside Erishiki, tilting her head down so that he cannot see her eyes.

"You're welcome, Hinata-chan." Hinata's head snaps up at that, startled at Sasuke's kind response. He smirks at her and gives a little half-wave; Hinata smiles despite herself.

Erishiki looks like she wants to say something, but in the end, she merely shakes her head. "Let's begin." The tortoise opens her beak and a great groaning ensues; she speaks in language they cannot understand, an old tongue that has long since died out, outside of Erishiki's spells.

The moon seems to grow in size, until everything is suffused in brilliant, bleached light; the stones surrounding Sasuke seem to pulse and glow, and his skin takes on a luminous pallor.

The light is so bright, it burns Hinata's eyes until she cries; at least, this is what she tells herself. Hinata can hardly take it, this long, drawn out spell; this bright light that obscures Sasuke's face and form until he is nothing more than a nebulous blur in front of her. Hinata is used to being able to see clearly, but everything is blurry from her tears and from the light, and gods, _gods_, just let it be over, she can't take it anymore—

The roar of Erishiki's voice grows louder, louder, until it is deafening; Hinata fights the urge to cover her ears with her hands. Then, the final words are spoken, and there is silence, a deathly, ominous silence, before a shriek, and a howl. A great beam of red light blooms from Erishiki's hands, pointing straight towards Sasuke.

He does not waver; his face is a mask of cool equanimity, as always. This light, so Erishiki has told her, is the final part of the spell, which will transport and seal Sasuke's soul into the next world while destroying his body.

Is it Hinata's imagination, or do Sasuke's eyes flicker to hers? She could be hallucinating, it could be the after-images from the bright light—but no, she can see it, she can _see_ Sasuke, deep at the bottom of his black eyes, she can _see_ him—

Oh gods, good gods, he's dying. Hinata can see it in his eyes, can see the pain blossom, the light leaching from his irises until they turn, slowly, into cold black stones—

No.

Hinata's body moves, as if of its own volition, between Sasuke's body and the red light. The light covers her like a tidal wave, and Hinata knows nothing but searing pain, and the feeling of her body being pulled apart in every direction. There is no time, there is no light or darkness, there is only the cutting agony and her own scream echoing in her throat.

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><p><em>an I love you all! Please review:)_


	20. Flight

Hey friends, and welcome back to the story! I am so glad that you all are enjoying the fic, and I appreciate all your very kind reviews:) I promise I will thank each and every one of you personally, it just might take me a little time! Really, I am stunned and amazed at how much everyone is enjoying this fic, and it makes me so happy.

I'm going through a really tough and intense time right now, and your kind words mean the world to me. So thanks all for all the pats on the back, because right now, oh man, I really need them:)

Special thanks to my beta, **Uchiha.s,** whose edits always make me howl with laughter:)

With love...enjoy this chapter!

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><p><strong>Chapter Twenty: Flight<strong>

Oh gods. Why is Hinata always flinging herself in front of forces she cannot hope to defeat? Maybe someone will explain it to her, now that she is undoubtedly dead, and this world—filled with white light and the hum of music—is surely the afterlife.

The pain is gone. Hinata can't feel a blessed thing, and that is how she knows she is dead. She isn't breathing; she can't feel her lungs rise or fall. Her heart, too, that's totally shut down, not a single _thump-thump._ Perhaps her mother will come to meet her. It has been a long, long time since she's seen her mother, and Hinata is looking forward to it.

"Hinata! Oh, my Hinata-chan, what have you done? What have I done? Oh, Hinata-chan, sweet spirits above and below…" a female voice is crying out, somewhere above Hinata's head, and surely, _surely_ it is her.

"Okaasan? Is that you?" Hinata rasps, as if her throat is raw, though she can't feel if it is or not.

Hinata senses, rather than sees, another presence beside her mother. He seems to be male. Perhaps it is her uncle? Hinata racks her brain for another deceased male relative, but she draws a blank. Whoever it is, he doesn't seem very happy with her—but how does Hinata know this? He's not saying anything, and she certainly can't see him, blinded as she is by the white light.

"Where am I? Am I dead?" Hinata ventures.

"Yes!"

"No."

Silence. Then:

"No!"

"Yes."

Silence falls again.

Hinata rises slowly from the ground, blinking rapidly. The white light dissolves, and her eyes adjust. Before her, Erishiki and Sasuke are looking at her with wide eyes and gaping mouths. She has never seen Sasuke look so startled before; he looks like someone has died.

Hinata realizes that the white light she mistook for the afterlife is the light of the moon; she had been staring into it. And the beautiful music, that had just been the lolling of the ocean. She must have fallen asleep on the beach—but what a strange dream! Finally, Hinata mumbles, "Why are you staring at me like that? Is something wrong?"

"Is something wrong? Heavens! Child, something _is_ wrong! _Everything_ is wrong! Oh gods above and below, I should have never agreed to this—I was retired for Kami's sake,_ retired_! The gods know I messed up badly enough before, but this! Oh, _this!_"

"Erishiki, are you mad at me?" Hinata whispers. "And Sasuke? Please stop staring at me. It's impolite."

Sasuke loses it. He opens his mouth to retort, but closes it quickly. He glowers at her, then turns away and begins pacing madly between two palm trees. Meanwhile, Erishiki is still ranting and raving, and Hinata can't figure out for the life of her what—

Wait. For the life of her…? Hinata puts her hands over her chest. Her lungs are not working; she is not breathing, even though she feels perfectly fine. Her heart—she puts her hands over her heart and there is no beat—there is _nothing_. "Byakugan!" she whispers, looking at her insides with enhanced vision. There is…nothing. The organs are there, but they are not moving; her chakra is there, but it is different, it is—

"Oh shit," she mutters, as the reality of the situation hits her. _"Oh shit oh shit oh shit_." Hinata collapses on the sand and closes her eyes. She would take a deep breath to calm herself down, but as she's already ascertained, she is not breathing. "What happened to me?" Hinata gasps.

Sasuke seems to have gained control of himself. He kneels down by Hinata. "You are—undead. Like me," Sasuke mutters.

Sasuke must be angry at her—he must be _unbelievably_ angry. He is still undead; she has stolen that which was most precious to him, and why? Because she was selfish, because_, because_—

He puts a hand on her shoulder, but it is not rough. "Can you move?"

Her limbs tremble. She forces herself up on her hands and knees, only to topple over a moment later. "No," she mumbles around a mouth full of sand. Sasuke lets out a long sigh and shores her up with his arms.

"Sasuke-kun, I can't feel anything," Hinata whispers.

"I know," is his only reply.

"Sasuke-brat," Erishiki barks, finally regaining control of herself. "Bring Hinata into the hut. There is something I need to give her, and I don't want you to be present. And then, you both must _go._ I don't want the Hokage and whoever else breaking into my domain—do you hear me?"

Wordlessly, Sasuke picks Hinata up in his arms, carries her to the hut, and arranges her on a chair as if she is a human-sized doll. "Sasuke…" Hinata whispers, because gods, she is sorry, _she is so sorry_, but she doesn't even know where to begin.

"Save it for later," he snaps, exiting the hut before Erishiki enters.

"Listen child, there is no time—no time! I've used up most of my magic, the portal is coming down, and I can't have any more humans here. I can't!" she cries, fumbling with a bowl, and beakers, and various glass bottles. "Here we go. Put this around your neck," the sorceress orders, handing Hinata a necklace. "Oh, sorry, I'll put it around your neck for you," Erishiki mutters, when she realizes that Hinata can't move. "Oh, you poor thing, you poor, poor thing, not even an Uchiha, forced to—"

"What is this, baachan?" Hinata asks, confused and weary, as Erishiki places a chain with a red vial around her neck.

"Listen child, and listen well: I didn't finish up all the magic in the spell. This tisane is still infused with the last bit of magic, and it's going to save your life. It's just enough to undo the spell."

Tears well up in Hinata's eyes. "I'm really—I'm dead?"

"Yes—no! You are…undead. And even worse—"

"What can be worse than being a zombie!" Hinata howls. "What could possibly—"

In reply, Erishiki holds a mirror up to Hinata's face; Hinata's hysterical words die on her lips. The reflection in the mirror has the Sharingan. No—not just any Sharingan: the Mangekyo Sharingan.

"How…? What…? _No!"_

"There's no time—be quiet and listen, you foolish child. The spell was configured to bring Sasuke back to life, then to deactivate his doujutsu, and _then_ it was supposed to kill him. When the spell hit you, everything turned opposite—the medicine turned poison. It pulled you in two directions—neither alive nor dead—and instead of taking away your Mangekyo—"

"This is a little far fetched. Baachan, can you pinch me, I'm sure that I'm dreaming—"

"It was the grief, your grief that Sasuke was dying. If that hadn't been there, you wouldn't be marked with this final curse. Didn't you know, Hinata, that the Sharingan was born of the Byakugan? It was I myself that gave it birth, and I have been burdened ever afterwards with cleaning up my mess. Now look what I've done! I'm no better than Orochimaru, I'm—"

"Enough, baachan—this thing around my neck, how does it work? How can I undo the spell?" Hinata asks, desperate.

Erishiki takes a slow, deep breath. "When your true love lays dying, pour the rest of this vial down his throat, then take a breath from your lungs and force it down his windpipe."

"But—I can't breathe!"

"Just like you can eat if you so desire, you can breathe. You'll see. Remember, when your true love lays dying—"

"Potion. Kiss. Got it," Hinata whispers. "But how—"

"Your extra life—the one that keeps you hovering between life and death—will be halved, and you will both live. Now hold still," Erishiki orders, though in truth Hinata can't move even if she wanted to. The sorceress takes a knife and a bottle of ink and etches a tattoo into Hinata's shoulder, though Hinata cannot feel it. "After you perform the spell, summon me at once; you'll need a master to finalize it."

"Yes ma'am," Hinata murmurs, though she does not quite understand; she is still reeling from everything that has happened in the past hour. Also, the thought of having to wait around for Naruto to die so that she can save him so that she can be not undead is thoroughly confusing and not at all appealing.

"Sasuke-brat! Get in here!" the tortoise barks once she is done with her handiwork. Sasuke has an unreadable expression on his face as he walks in. His hands are shoved deep down into his pockets.

"There is one more way for you to die, but I did not suggest it at first, for the jutsu will surely damn your soul to hell, and it may well be impossible to fulfill the requirements for the jutsu in the first place."

Sasuke shrugs. "I'm bound for hell, anyway. Hurry up and tell us what this alternative is. I can already feel the Idiot grinding away at your shields, and I _don't_ want to see him again."

Erishiki nods. "If you can locate every single zombie that you've animated with edo tensei—and I don't know that you can—then you can cast Final Strike. Then, your soul and the souls of the undead can all sleep; but this will bring judgement down upon you all at once, and you will likely be banished to the lowest of hells."

Sasuke smirks. "That's easily done; just one question. Can I take Uchiha Madara with me?"

Erishiki, who had been rifling through a pile of scrolls, pauses in her search and eyes him warily. "You know where all your zombies are? You know where _he_ is?"

Sasuke lets out a long sigh. "If I have to get to the zombies I've created, then I'll have to go through the Idiot; and if I'm going that route, I might as well take Madara down with me. Can I do it?"

"Yes. Here's the scroll. I'm going to transport both of you to the other side of the mountain. When you get there, flare your chakra and lead your little friends _away_ from my portals. Okay? Hinata-chan, can you stand?"

Hinata places both hands down on the chair and shoves off with determination. However, her limbs still cannot hold her; Sasuke swoops in to catch her before she falls. "No," Hinata mutters, "I guess not. Erishiki, forgive me—"

"There's no time for that, and it's my fault, anyway. I'm nothing but an old, wizened imbecile. Now, away you go!"

With that, everything flashes white, and they are falling—or flying—Hinata can't decide which—

Then, somehow, they are standing on the gray slate mountain. Or at least, Sasuke is standing, and Hinata is slumped down over his shoulder like a rag-doll. "Sasuke, I—"

"Don't bother," he breaks in, though his words are not angry; he merely sounds tired.

They flare their chakra, as per Erishiki's instructions. Sasuke picks Hinata up and carries her bridal-style, running down the slippery mountain away from Naruto and Sakura.

For Hinata, there is only the wind rushing by her ears, and the heavy, numb feeling permeating her body. She feels wooden, and hollow, and dead on every level. The glass vial beats against her breast with every jarring leap, and she thinks to herself that she will have to wait a long, long time to live again.

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><p><em>Thanks so much for reading! Please review:)<em>


	21. Animals

_Hey friends! I'm going to Big Sur tomorrow (yippeeeee!) so I'm updating early, as opposed to not at all. I'm going to stop obsessing over this chapter and just publish, damn it. I'm feeling a little insecure about it T-T, and I hope that you'll like it!_

_You guys like the cover I made for this fic? I made it myself with my photoshop skillz :) You can see it in better resolution on my livejournal page, **wingedmercury dot livejournal dot com**  
><em>

_Special thanks to my beta, **Uchiha.s**, for being brilliant as always._

_Thanks also to all my amazing reviewers! I have to like, start packing and stuff, but I am hoping I can thank you all personally via PM before I go to bed tonight, after I'm done running around like a chicken without a head T-T. Seriously though, I love you, I love you, I love you.  
><em>

_Enjoy!_

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><p>Chapter Twenty-One: <strong>Animals<strong>

_I wish to the Lord my baby was born,_

_A-sitting upon his papa's knee;_

_And me, poor girl, was dead and gone,_

_And the green grass growing over me._

_~Every Night When the Sun Goes In, Traditional_

"Naruto, I know this isn't easy, but as a representative of Mount Moyoboku, I'm tellin' you—you have to stop! Get the hell off the shield, you freakin' idiot!"

"Whoa, brother, that's harsh," Gamatatsu mumbles around a mouth full of chips.

Gamakichi has been hollering at Naruto for the better part of an hour, but the Hokage isn't listening to him. Instead, Naruto is still trying to claw his way through the barrier with every ounce of _Kyubi-Sage Mode-Rasengan-jutsu_ he has.

"Damn it, you fat-headed idiot!" Gamakichi roars, his orange skin turning red from anger. "Erishiki is gonna tan our hides! She's gonna deep-fry us all in hot oil! She's gonna—"

"Damn it!" Naruto screeches as he and his clones pause in their Super-Giant-Rasengan attack. Half of his face is blue from the light of the Rasengan, while the other half is Kyubi-red. "You're my summons—you should be _helping_ me!"

"Because, Naruto! It's like I've been tryin' to tell you," Gamakichi moans, exasperated. "Erishiki is the mother of all Sage jutsu! If you don't stop—"

"I don't care if she's the Sage of the Six Paths!" Naruto snarls, turning away from his irksome summons. He slams his giant Rasengan into the barrier, and his clones follow suit; the clones disappear in a great puffs of smoke, while Naruto himself falls flat on his ass. When the smoke clears, the barrier is still there, shimmering and just as solid.

"Dammit, why isn't it working?" Naruto howls. "I'm the legendary Toad Sage—I'm the jinchuriki of the Nine Tails! I'm the Hokage! And I can't even save one friend!" Naruto, though he is close to tears, is never one to be dissuaded by an impossible task. He is about to form the hand-signs to create more clones when Gamakichi slams into him, sending him sprawling onto the ground.

"Naruto! For the love of toad oil, listen to me! You can't break through this barrier. If you do, you'll lose your contract with the toads, and you'll probably have your Sage Mode taken away from you, too."

"Wha…?" Naruto gasps, shoving Gamakichi off of him.

"He's right, Naruto-chan," Gamatatsu calls blithely from the sidelines. "Erishiki is one freaky sorceress. I wouldn't cross her if I were you. Hey niisan, do you have any more potato chips?"

"Gamatatsu, shut up, you freakin' idiot! Naruto—"

"Is it really true, Gamakichi? She'll take away my summoning contract _and_ my Sage powers? But how? That's impossible!" Naruto mutters, his orange-rimmed eyes wide.

"Gamakichi," Sakura calls wearily, striding forward, "that sounds like a bunch of hyperbole to me. How can one person, no matter how strong, take away—"

"Eh, Sakura-chan, what's a hyperbole?" Naruto mutters.

"You don't get it!" Gamakichi shouts at Sakura, ignoring Naruto's idiotic comment. "She's _the_ sorceress Erishiki! Creator of the summoning contracts! Original Sage of Nature Chakra! The creator and the destroyer of the Sharingan—"

"Wait, what?" Sakura breathes. "That can't be true; that's just ridiculous. Naruto," she barks, "if the toads can't help us, maybe the slugs can." Sakura takes out a kunai and draws it across her thumb. However, before she can slam down her bloodied hand, there is a poof of smoke.

"Sakura-chan! You must stop!"

"Katsuyu? But I— I haven't summoned you yet!" Sakura calls up to her summon, who has appeared in her largest form and towers over the group.

"I know; I've come to you. Sakura, you can't break down the barrier! If you do—"

"Gah! You mean Erishiki is going to boil you in hot oil, too?" Naruto calls, making a horrified face. He is certain that deep-fried slug will taste even worse than deep-fried toad.

Katsuyu's feelers quiver, and she gives him a quizzical glare. "Naruto-kun, this is no time to be making jokes. If you rip through the portal, you'll cause an inter-dimensional tear in the fabric of the universe, causing irrevocable damage to the worlds where the summoning creatures reside."

"What?" Naruto asks, throughly confused.

"That's horrible!" Sakura shouts. "But—no, how can we trust you? Erishiki sent you here, didn't she! Naruto-kun, listen to me," Sakura cries, grabbing him by the lapels of his orange jumpsuit. "We can't trust anyone! Not even our own summons!"

"Sakura-chan, what are you saying?" Katsuyu calls. "I'm your summons! And I'm trying to help you. It's because you're going after Sasuke-kun, you've lost all reason—"

Abruptly, Sakura turns away from Katsuyu and roars, "ANBU—contain the summoning animals! They've turned traitor to Konoha!"

"Sakura-chan, wait—" Naruto cries, but stops when Sakura spears him with a death-glare.

"We can't give up on Sasuke-kun," she breathes. Desperation flashes in her green eyes, while the light of the full moon casts Sakura's skin in a silver pallor.

Naruto, instead of being frightened into reason by Sakura's expression, nods in agreement, his eyes glinting just as feral as hers. "You heard Sakura-sama! Anyone who stands in our way is an enemy!" he roars.

"Katsuyu," Gamakichi mutters, "we'd better get out of here."

"But Erishiki—" the slug protests.

"Can hold her own," Gamakichi concludes grimly. "I'm not going to fight my own summoner, no matter what. Come on, Gamatatsu, we have more potato chips at home."

"Oh boy!"

"Sakura-chan, I also will not fight you," Katsuyu whispers, "but I do hope you'll reconsider. What you are doing is foolish and irresponsible. I'm going to bring Lady Tsunade here, in the hopes that she can talk some sense into you." And with that, all the summoning creatures disappear in smoke, from whence they came.

"All right," Naruto cries, "all ANBU on deck! We're going to—oh. Oh no! Sakura-chan!"

"What? What is it?" Sakura cries as Naruto doubles over.

"It's—whatever it is, it's a huge amount of chakra. I can feel Sasuke's chakra signature weakening!"

Sakura cracks her knuckles. "ANBU! Let's do it!" Sakura charges the iridescent barrier, attacking it with all of her strength, because Sasuke—Sasuke who is alive! Sasuke who was dead!—is dying, and she will not stand by and let it happen all over again. Not when it is her fault. _Oh Sasuke-kun, please wait for us!_

Beside her, Naruto is just as manic, half Kyubi snarling clawing, while he commands an army of clones. He, too, will not give up, will _never_ give up. Sasuke is theirs, and theirs alone. Even the Death God cannot have him.

The barrier starts to crack under their assault. With every hairline fracture, their efforts become more intense. They are almost there_—_

"Wait—what?" Naruto pauses in his pummeling.

"What's wrong, Naruto?" Sakura snaps, panting heavily.

"The spell's over. Sasuke is alive!" Naruto slumps with relief. "I think they messed up the spell—Sakura, Sasuke is _alive!_"

Sakura draws back her fist, enhanced with frenetic chakra. "Then lets get the rest of this barrier down and get him out of there!"

"All right!" Naruto shouts, and their assault continues. Just as the shield begins to crack substantially, and they are so close to Sasuke, so, so close, Naruto's head snaps up once more.

"Sakura! They're changing position. I can feel them—come on!" Without waiting for her reply, he grabs her wrist and practically flies to where he feels the chakra flare, all the way on the other side of the mountain. The ANBU, winded, conflicted, and weary, trail after their addled Hokage and his Lady.

The moon casts everything in high relief. The light is so intense that it feels like they are sliding down a mountain made of pure silver instead of gray slate. Sakura and Naruto crash down the mountainside, heedless of the rocks scoring their skin, of their dangerous headlong flight down sheer cliffs and over unstable, shifting rock. There is only one thing that commands their attention, and that is Uchiha Sasuke, his chakra flaring like a beacon of light.

They do not register when the mountain ends and the forest begins; they do not feel the branches that whip them, the brambles that tear, the rocks that lodge in their shoes. They are pure adrenaline, and they are traveling faster than the wind.

They can feel Sasuke's pace slowing until finally, he stops. Sasuke is waiting for them, Sakura thinks with glee—he is finally allowing them to catch up. Her heart leaps up into her throat and she runs, flying even faster than before. Naruto too, he is hardly more than a streak of light whistling through the trees, and together, they are soaring through the forest, drawn with the force of all their longing towards the familiar chakra signature.

"Idiot. Useless. What a surprise," Sasuke drawls when Naruto and Sakura finally make it to the clearing. He stands upon the crest of a hill, looking down at them. His form is bathed in moonlight, and he looks more ethereal than human. Hinata is beside him, sitting on the ground and leaning against a rock, but they don't see her; they only have eyes for _him._

For a moment, Naruto and Sakura stand still, gaping up at the apparition that is Sasuke. Naruto recovers himself first. "You bastard," Naruto rasps, "we've come all this way for you, and that's all you have to say to us?"

"I never asked you to come after me," Sasuke growls. "How many times do I have to tell you? Leave. Me. Alone."

"No!" Naruto roars, gathering chakra into his fist. "I'll never leave you, never!"

Beside him, Sakura shouts something incoherent, fills herself with jutsu, and is just a step behind Naruto as they come, fists flying, glowing with incredible jutsu.

Their eyes are so fixed on Sasuke, on his supercilious smirk—_We will wipe that smirk from your face, Sasuke-kun, we will bring you home—_that they don't see Hinata rise from the ground. They don't see her glowing with chakra, her eyes rutilant and angry; they don't see her until she is right in front of them, standing in front of Sasuke with arms outstretched, a human shield.

And they can't stop,_ they can't stop_, why is Hinata there, what is she doing—_they can't stop—_

Naruto's Rasengan tears through Hinata's chest cavity, while Sakura's fist meets her skull with a sickening crack.

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><p><em>Thanks so much for reading:) Please review!<em>


	22. Rage

_a/n Hey all you wonderful people! I'm sorry if I didn't get a chance to thank each and every one of you for your review two chapters ago; I suck at packing and ran out of time T-T. I WILL, however, thank everyone for the last chapter, personally, hopefully tonight! Thanks so much everyone for your awesome reviews; you slay me with awesome-ness. I got some really nice anonymous reviews, too, mad props to you anonymous reviewers out there in cyber land!**  
><strong>_

_Special thanks to **Uchiha.s, **my beta, and also to **The Lady Avaritia, **who I was going to have double-beta this chapter because I was so OCD about it, but in the end, decided not to obsess :D Thanks for being there for me, ladies._

_I swear, I must have gone over this chapter a hundred times. I really hope you like it; it's one of my favorites so far:) Enjoy!_

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><p><strong>Chapter Twenty-Two: Rage<strong>

_Make me down a pallet on your floor_

_Make me down a pallet on your floor_

_Make me down a pallet soft and low_

_When I'm broken an' I got no where to go._

_~Make Me Down a Pallet on Your Floor, Traditional_

Hinata doesn't feel anything. She hears a wet _thwack_ before her body is flung backwards. The world literally spins—she realizes that her head has detached itself from her body and is rolling down the hill. It is a disconcerting experience.

"Oh gods—Hinata?" Naruto gasps, bent over double. "I've just killed Hinata-chan…"

Sakura's eyes are as wide as the full moon over her head. Her mouth hangs open, but no sound comes out.

"Hinata!" Sasuke roars, and Hinata can tell that he is livid. "Who the fuck told you to step in? Again! Stop throwing yourself in front of me, you reckless—"

"Sasuke," Hinata's severed head retorts, "don't order me around! This is just as much your fault. Now help me put my head back on my neck; and I think my heart is laying in pieces somewhere behind the rocks," she snaps. "It'll go faster if my pieces are all in one place, right?"

Hinata closes her eyes. If she had hands, she would rub her temples, or possibly, bash her head against a rock. It is bad enough that she is undead; the fact that she has been dismembered by Naruto and Sakura infuriates her. She's not going to take shit from anyone—least of all, Uchiha Sasuke, who got her into this mess in the first place. When she opens her eyes and finds that Sasuke has not moved, she glowers at him.

"Sasuke? My body parts, please. _Now,_" Hinata growls.

"Hinata? But how…? Where are you?" Naruto whispers, his face long and green in the moonlight. Hinata can see him, though Naruto (and everything else) is upside down from her vantage point, since she is resting on the crown of her head with her severed neck pointing straight up into the air.

"She's fine, Idiot. No thanks to you," Sasuke snarls. He turns away to search for the pieces of Hyuga Hinata's corpse.

"She's fine? How can she be _fine?_" Sakura shrieks, her eyes wild with fear, her hands clawing at her scalp. "I blew her head right off of her body!"

Naruto, dizzy, kneels on the ground. "My Rasengan went right through her chest cavity…"

"It wouldn't be the first time I've sustained an injury on your account," Hinata retorts hotly. Sasuke follows the sound of her voice and picks up her head from the ground, tucking it under his elbow.

"Oh shit—Hinata—" Naruto cannot complete his sentence, for seeing the head of the Hyuga sends him into complete hysterics. Behind him, Sakura retches.

"Oi, Sakura! Don't you dare vomit on my body," Hinata grumbles. "Kami, that's the _last_ thing I need right now."

Sasuke walks back up the hill with slow, deliberate paces, and places Hinata's disembodied head on top of the rock she had sat beside not long ago. "I'll find the rest of you, Hinata," Sasuke states before crawling on his hands and knees, picking up slivers of ribs and globular pieces of internal organs.

Naruto and Sakura are staring at her. Hinata, who has always abhorred the weight of other people's eyes on her, snarls.

"Naruto and Sakura," Hinata snaps, "the greatest ninja ever produced by Konoha, benevolent rulers of the Leaf. But the minute you come into contact with Uchiha Sasuke, you lose all reason. You destroy everyone and everything, just to get to your grubby paws on your precious Sasuke. Have you ever stopped to think that maybe, just _maybe,_ this is the very reason why Sasuke-san treats you the way he does?"

Naruto's mouth falls open, and he makes a pained, choking sound. Sakura is the first to recover. "How dare you," she whispers, "how dare you tell us what to do! You don't know anything about Sasuke-kun, you don't—"

"You really are useless and annoying," Hinata interrupts. "Shut your mouth and think, _think_ woman! Think before you—"

"You bitch!" Sakura cries, reeling back her fist. She is about to strike when Sasuke catches her wrist.

"Get ahold of yourself," Sasuke snaps. "You've already decapitated her; what are you going to do, send her head rolling down the hill again?"

Sakura and Naruto shrink back from Sasuke, looking between him and Hinata's head with slack jaws.

"Tch. Come on, Hinata. I've found all of your components," Sasuke says.

"Um…" Hinata's eyes strain to see Sasuke. He looms over her like a giant, as she only reaches Sasuke's knees from her bodiless perch on the rock. "How does this jutsu…work?" she asks at last.

Sasuke sits down cross-legged beside her, his expression masked. "It always just—I don't know, turned on of its own accord."

Hinata closes her eyes. What if she doesn't have the magic to reassemble her body? What if she's condemned to live as a headless zombie for the rest of her life? What if—

"Stop fretting and turn your eyes on," Sasuke growls.

"Right." Hinata squints, feeling the chakra build up behind her optical nerves. Her eyes glow red with what she assumes is the Sharingan, but nothing happens.

"Sasuke? Um…?"

Sasuke is resting his chin in his hands. He is hunched over, staring into her eyes. It is an altogether unpleasant experience. "What?" Hinata finally snaps, her patience having long since worn thin.

"You have the Sharingan in both eyes, but you only have the Mangekyo in your right eye."

"I don't care," Hinata whines, "I just want— Wait. How is that…?"

Sasuke shakes his head and activates his own doujutsu; as she fears, only his left eye bears the Mangekyo Sharingan. "You must have absorbed half of my jutsu in the spell," Sasuke mutters. His eyes glow red, casting everything in a bloody light. Hinata's eyes, too, begin to shine with rutilant light; her head quivers, then rolls down from the rock to her body laying on the ground.

Though she does not feel pain, she does feel _something—_an awkward, slimy, and nauseating sensation that makes her dizzy. Her eyes cannot focus, but she can feel, dimly, her head reattaching itself to her body; the organs meshing back into her chest cavity; her bones cementing themselves together from slivers. She lets out a low moan.

"Yeah, I know," Sasuke mutters. "It sucks."

"Uchiha!" a voice shouts. It is not Naruto, but another male voice. With horror, Hinata realizes it is Neji—where the hell did he come from?—and he is about to strike Sasuke from behind.

"Neji, NO! Stop!" she wails, "Don't—"

Belatedly, her vision clears, and she realizes that they are encircled by ANBU and Hyuga, and that Neji will not—cannot—stop. "Neji!" Hinata shrieks, as Neji's hand slices through Sasuke's chest cavity.

"Great, just great," Sasuke mutters as Neji retracts his hand from inside of his body. "This is exactly why I left Konoha in the first place; do any of you fuckers _think_ before you strike, or are you all just as retarded as your Hokage?" Sasuke snarls.

Neji stumbles back. "That attack should have killed you—there's a hole in your chest—what—?

"Neji-niisan," Hinata begins, but when Neji's eyes meet hers, they widen in fear and his face goes white. Hinata sighs, surprised that she can manage the action; it must be force of habit, she assumes. Hinata does not need to breathe, since she is dead, and yet sighing is exactly what she feels like doing.

"Hinata-sama—what—?"

"I'm a zombie," she blurts out, just as the last bits of her flesh reattach themselves to her person. She rises on shaky limbs. "I'm a zombie, and I accidentally took half of Sasuke's Mangekyo. Yeah, I know, far-fetched, I don't even understand it myself—"

"Naruto!" Neji roars, "This is all your fault, you selfish piece of shit!"

"Neji! Neji-niisan, it's not Naruto's fault—stop it!" Hinata cries, but Neji does not hear her. Instead, he leaps on top of the Hokage and starts pummeling him, though thankfully, his fists are not enhanced with chakra.

"What the hell is going on here? Neji! Get off of your Hokage! Don't give me that look," Tsunade snaps, her arms crossed over her chest as she glowers down at everyone from her elevated seat on Katsuyu's back. If slugs could glare, Hinata is sure that is what the summons is doing as well.

"Katsuyu told me everything—_everything,_" Tsunade barks.

Incoherent babbling breaks out between Naruto, Sakura, Neji, and Tsunade; Sasuke and Hinata share a look. "Sasuke-san," Hinata murmurs, "I am really, truly sorry."

Sasuke frowns. "Stop apologizing. It's annoying."

"However," Hinata continues, ignoring his caustic reply, "this is also partially your fault. If you weren't such an inscrutable jerk—"

"I know," Sasuke states without inflection. "Here." He hands Hinata the necklace from Erishiki, the crimson vial which glints bloodred in the moonlight.

"Thanks, Sasuke," she murmurs, placing the necklace over her head with unsteady hands. "I think I understand, now, why you did what you did to Naruto and Sakura. You had to push them away—"

"For their own damned good," Sasuke says with a nod. "Tell me something I don't know." Sasuke rolls his eyes and rubs his chest cavity, which has finished repairing itself. He clears his throat. "Tsunade-sama," he intones, his commanding voice cutting through the senseless babble. "I have a scroll for you, from your sensei."

"I know," Tsunade grumbles, "she told me you would have it."

"Sensei?" Hinata squeaks. "What do you mean—"

But Tusnade ignores her. "Brat," she shouts to Naruto, "Haraishin us all back to Konoha. We have business to take care of."

"But granny—" he whines.

"Enough!" she booms, her voice resounding throughout the clearing. "I've had just about enough of you! Hokage or not, I'd like to take you across my knee and give you a good, hard spanking! I've got half a mind to gather the elders and the feudal court together to depose you from your position. Do you understand me, Naruto? I have never been so disgusted with you in all my life."

"Tsunade—" Sakura croaks, but Tsunade cuts her off as well.

"And Sakura! I could say no better about you. You're supposed to be the voice of reason; you're the one who is supposed to keep Naruto from having his vapors. Yet you were commanding the ANBU to attack your own summons! Let's go, Naruto. Summon your clones and get us back to Konoha."

"Tsunade-sama," one of the ANBU states, stepping forward hesitantly. "Shouldn't we…well…secure the prisoners?" he says, gesturing towards Hinata and Sasuke. Hinata isn't lost to the fact that the man with the rat mask is asking Tsunade, and not Naruto, for instruction.

"Don't bother," Tsunade mutters. "Naruto—Hiraishin! Now," she barks.

Silence descends on the hillside. Naruto's clones make barely a sound as they poof into existence, carrying away the various and sundry nin with nothing more than a silent yellow flash.

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><p><em>Hinata FTW! Please review;)<em>


	23. Saved

_In the life of your fanfic author..._

This week, I had a sinus infection, an ear infection, a fever, and a migraine that lasted for 48 hours. Oh boy! And I was like, supposed to get a lot of things done, like finish my client's website T-T. Yeah, that didn't happen. But somehow, this fanfic got edited, and now, published. I'm finally feeling better, and will devote my Saturday night to all the graphic design and web design projects I was supposed to do during the week. Gasp!

(Please, help me procrastinate by reading the next chapter)

In the meantime, I have become addicted to dubstep music, and Lord of the Rings on audiobook (no, not at the same time, though that might be rad).

Special thanks to **Uchiha.s,** my beta extraordinaire, and to all my wonderful readers and reviewers. You make my life non-sucky :)

Sorry for the long wait: here it is at long last!

_~~~~~~~~~~published to "Eyes on Fire, Zeds Dead remix" by Blue Foundation. Yay dubstep!_

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><p><strong>Chapter twenty-three: <strong>**Saved**

_It's a short life of trouble_

_A few more words to part_

_Short life of trouble dear girl_

_For a boy with a broken heart_

_~Short life of trouble, _Traditional

Everything is silent in the Hokage's office, everything except Tsunade's nails as they cascade on the polished desk, making a steady _thruuuum, thrummm, thrummp. _Tsunade's amber eyes are unreadable as she takes her free hand—the hand not currently engaged in tapping—and chews her polished thumbnail, ruining what was once a perfect manicure.

The combination of sounds—the _thruuuum, thrummm, thrummp_ of her fingernails playing a steady tattoo on the desk, combined with the clicking-gnawing sound of the thumbnail worried by her teeth, are enough to drive Hinata insane—if she weren't half-mad already, Hinata thinks with irony.

Sasuke had enough time, between the Hiraishin ride from the gray mountain and the long journey up the stairs to the Hokage's office, to teach her the secret. "If you spread out your chakra like a net over your whole body," he had said, "you'll be able to move more freely. It will get easier with time and practice."

Hinata scoffs at that. Nothing about any of this will get easier, though she is pleased that she can walk on her own again, and that Sasuke doesn't have to carry her like a bag of groceries. Sasuke had assured her that she would be able to do jutsu again in no time; that he has faith in her. Hinata had merely shrugged at that, for the words seemed as hollow as her useless, empty lungs.

It isn't the old, tangled thoughts that make her desperate, the cold voice that sounds like her father, all susurrant and _how useless can you be?_ No, the desperation that settles on Hinata comes from the fact that her body, though encased in a thin net of chakra, is numb. She can hardly feel herself at all.

If she were alive, Hinata muses, then surely the sight of the former Hokage, tapping and chewing her nails, glaring at all four of them—Sakura and Naruto on one side, Hinata and Sasuke on the other—would have sent Hinata's stomach roiling. She would have tasted bile rising at the back of her throat, her tongue fur dry and sour; she might have trembled. Her hands would be clammy, and she would have discretely wiped them on her pant legs.

Now, Hinata feels nothing. Her stomach is a wrinkled, empty sac, and her gall bladder is silent and certainly not producing bile. Curiously though, her hands are slightly clammy; she can feel them, faintly, through the nothingness that is her self. It must be force of habit, Hinata thinks. Sasuke has warned her of this, too; some actions are so ingrained that the body remembers them of its own accord.

_Great_, Hinata muses, _just great_. _I'm undead, and my damn palms still sweat_. She doesn't _feel_ anxious, though; she doesn't feel much of anything except a thin despair. Her hands must have a memory of their own, and have been conditioned to sweat, as if on cue, when faced with her superior's glare.

In the silence punctuated by Tsunade's nails, Hinata wonders: _If I am undead, does that mean I am dead? No, not dead; if I were dead, my palms wouldn't be sweating. I wouldn't feel them, even faintly. But I'm not alive either, because I don't need my organs or blood or… I'm mostly dead, I guess. But how much dead am I, and how much alive?_ Hinata winces at her own inelegant phrasing; apparently, she can still wince on cue, too.

Is she two-thirds dead and one-third alive? Or is it more like half-and-half? _No, not half-and-half; if I was only half-dead, I suspect my organs would be half-functional, instead of totally shut down._ She supposes it's not a matter of percentages. Her dead body has been hijacked by her chakra; she is held prisoner by her upgraded eyeballs. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but it doesn't have to make sense, because it is _happening_—it is the reality that Hinata now faces. She cannot outthink it or outrun it.

At least she is not wracked by emotions; at least she is sitting as serenely as the Buddha himself: unmoving, unfeeling. Even her thoughts seem detached, like they are being thought by someone else and transplanted into her head via mind-jutsu. How is she even thinking in the first place? Is her brain the only operational organ in her body, and if so, how is that fucking possible?

She supposes, if her Sharingan eyes control her and keep her alive through their own discretion, then they must, somehow, have preserved her brain as well, along with the optical nerves. How far-fetched, Hinata thinks, _how ridiculous_. There is a bitter twinge to her thoughts, and she is perplexed: how she can feel an emotion, like bitterness, when the rest of her is…dead?

"Hinata," Tsunade mutters, startling the Hyuga out of her metacognition, "is that everything?"

"Yes, Tsunade-sama," Hinata replies, her voice free of any inflection. Out of the four of them, Hinata was the one who gave the mission report. The former members of Team Seven seemed fit for nothing more than staring somberly at the floor, or in Sasuke's case, simply staring.

Tsunade pushes herself up from the Hokage's desk. She rolls up the scroll with care, tucks it into her generous bosom, and begins to pace. It is not a furious pace, or even a fast pace; no, it is more like Tsunade is floating from one end of the room to the other on feet that seem to swim in the air. Four sets of eyes follow her as she ghosts from one wall to the other. Hinata can feel her palms sweating, harder this time; she wipes them on her pants with an absent-minded gesture.

Finally, Tsunade comes to a halt behind the desk and leans down over it, her hands clenching the edge of the polished wood. "Naruto. Sakura." She gazes at them with an intense yet inscrutable expression. "You two have always chased Sasuke, presupposing what it is that he wants. Now, I am giving Sasuke a chance to choose his own destiny. Is that clear?"

"What do you mean, baachan?" Sakura rasps. Hinata has to strain to hear her.

Sasuke stands then, making no noise as his eyes meet Tsunade's. Hinata's Sharingan switches on of its own accord—or maybe it's her Byakugan, she's not sure; her body, after all, is no longer her own. She can see the pulsing lines of Sasuke's chakra, his resolve in a tightened fist, his determination in his clenched jaw. These must be the habits that Sasuke's body remembers and repeats, Hinata thinks; muscle memory. Either that, or it is an affect which his eyes and body copy, a facsimile of life where there is none.

It strikes Hinata, then, that Sasuke has never had much choice in his life, played first by his brother, then by various nefarious senseis; he has been forced into unasked-for roles by Naruto and Sakura; he has been branded by the world as things that, given a choice, he probably would-not-be, would-not-have-been.

Even his eyes, his all-powerful, all-seeing eyes, have condemned him to a life not of his own choosing, neither alive nor dead; eternally suspended in between, and unable to sleep.

Hinata understands, now. She knows what it is like to have no choice, to have the threads of destiny gathered like a noose around her neck; to abdicate the desires of her heart, because she is nothing but a tool, and a useless tool at that.

(Or at least, she was a useless tool. But life is too short for regrets; she knows that, now, because she is dead, or mostly so.)

Hinata stands calmly by Sasuke's side. "Whatever you choose, Sasuke-san, I will help you. I will not stand in your way again."

He glances at her and spares her a kind of half-smirk. "Good. I don't want anyone throwing themselves in the way again. This is what I choose: I want to die, and I want to take all the undead—and Uchiha Madara—with me."

Hinata nods before sitting down in her seat. She knew what he was going to choose before he chose it. This time, she will make up for her past indiscretions with decisive action.

Sasuke presses on, "Is that possible, Tsunade? Do you have—"

"Sit down, brat. And don't forget the honorific, you impertinent fool. I'm Tsunade-_sama_ to you." Tsunade glowers down at Sasuke who sits, slowly, in his chair. "I was going to cast Final Strike myself, once I was no longer needed, and the zombies from the last war were all gathered in one place—"

"No! Granny, you can't do that!" Naruto wails. "You'd die—"

"Brat, you think I don't know that? I'm _old_, Naruto-kun. For Kami's sake, I'm ready to die! And if my death could remove roughly one-thousand-seven-hundred-and-seventy-two zombies from the world—not to mention one undead Uchiha Madara—I'd consider it a death well played," Tsunade snaps, cowing Naruto back into his seat with her glare.

"In fact," Tsunade continues, "I have already processed the paperwork. I was going to get around to it sometime, but it seemed like I was still needed in Konoha. You are a young Hokage, Naruto-kun. A good Hokage," Tsunade adds wearily, "but young."

Naruto bursts into tears at this, and Hinata's eyes widen in surprise. She doesn't quite understand his emotional outburst—what is there to weep about? But Tsunade seems to know, because she pulls up a chair by Naruto's side and lets him snot all over her shoulder. "There, there," Tsunade whispers, "you are a good Hokage—"

"How can I be a good Hokage if I can't save one friend!" he cries. He tries to rise, but he is held in the vice-grip of Tsunade's arms, which hold him to the chair.

"You've _already_ saved your friend," Tsunade murmurs into his hair. "Look. We've got Uchiha fucking Sasuke sitting in your office. He's not going on a homicidal rampage. In fact, he would like to rectify his past mistakes." Tsunade eyes Sasuke over the top of Naruto's head, silently commanding Sasuke to _say something._

Sasuke obeys. He raises himself on wooden legs, walking over to Naruto with slow, jerking movements. He places one hand on Naruto's shuddering shoulder, and the other on top of Sakura's head. He brushes her pink hair with a movement that is detached and kind all at the same time.

If Hinata still had functioning guts, she is sure they would have curdled and sunk in her abdomen by now. All the same, she clenches her hands together in her lap and presses her lips together in the manner of a stern pedagogue. She is not sure why her body does this, for she assures herself that she does not _feel_ anything.

"Stop crying, Idiot," Sasuke snaps, "and start acting like the Hokage."

Tsunade narrows her eyes at him; this is not exactly what she had in mind. But Naruto seems to get the message. He sniffles, wipes the back of his hands over his snot- and tear-covered face, a demi-smile on his lips. "Bastard," he rasps, "I'll miss you when you're dead."

"Tch. I'm already dead."

"Even so," Naruto murmurs, extricating himself from Tsunade's embrace and taking Sasuke's hand in his. "Even so…"

Sakura rises and flings her arms around Sasuke with an inchoate cry. He puts his arm around her and lets her sob on his shoulder. He doesn't flinch when his shirt is soaked through with tears, he simply holds her until she's done.

"It's not my fault you fell in love with an asshole," he mutters gruffly, once she draws away.

Sakura makes a choking sound, something half-way between a sob and a laugh. "Yeah. And it's not my fault that you…" she sounds like she's going to make a joke, but her voice falters, and she trails off, staring down at her shaking hands.

The unspoken words ring in the air: _It's not my fault you did not know how to love,_ is what Sakura means to say. Hinata can hear it, and so can Sasuke. What is this, Hinata thinks; she feels something, but it's so far away, she cannot name it. A tear forms in her right eye and trickles down her cheek. She does not bother to brush it away.

Who is she crying for? Why is she sad? _I'm dead, _Hinata reminds herself. _I have no emotions left._ Except that it's not true, not really. There are some residual bits and pieces of _something_ lurking at the bottom of her, somewhere. She does not find them, though, nor does she care to look.

"When can we perform the jutsu?" Sasuke demands. Hinata looks up and realizes that he is sitting beside her once more, though she does not know when he came back. Naruto and Sakura, too, are sitting back down in their respective places, but Hinata does not look into their faces. She does not want to see the grief twisting their features; she does not want to call up the memory of grief in herself.

"Tonight," Tsunade calls, her voice soft. "I have every zombie you've ever made—"

"That's not hard," Sasuke scoffs, "I only made two."

Tsunade plows on, as if she has not heard him, "And Naruto can bring all the other undead via Hirashin from the other Shinobi nations. As well as Madara, from the Toad Mountain. Right, Naruto?"

Hinata sees Naruto raise his head from the corner of her eye. "Right, baachan! No worries, just leave it to me!" The forced mirth in his voice makes Hinata wince; there it is again, that wince. She can't shake her involuntary reactions, even in death.

"I will help you draw the runes for the spell," Hinata mutters in a monotone. "Erishiki taught me how." She looks up into Tsunade's eyes; there's something unreadable there, something that borders on sorrow, or pity, maybe.

"Good. Sasuke, Hinata, you'll stay in Konoha. I'll need Sasuke to confirm that we have every zombie Madara ever made. If we don't, the spell might backlash on us."

"You're lucky Kabuto's zombies died with him," Sasuke states. "Otherwise—"

"I don't want to think about it. Roughly two-thousand zombies is enough," Tsunade hisses. "Naruto, Sakura, bring home the other undead. Go to Sand first, that will be the least amount of red-tape. Hinata, take Sasuke to the holding area—you know the way."

"Yes ma'am," Hinata mumbles. She rises on unfeeling limbs and leads Sasuke through the twisting halls of the Hokage's tower.

"I know where it is. You don't have to lead me," Sasuke mutters after a while, his hands shoved deep in his pockets.

"Then walk beside me," Hinata says, her voice airy and flat, as if she is many miles away.

They walk out past the training fields, out past the Forest of Death, to another sectioned-off area. The masked guards let them through without so much as a word, deactivating the electrified fence and unlocking the multiple bolts. The rusty metal creaks open with a rasp and a groan. Hinata and Sasuke enter the dark mouth of a subterranean cave, whose labyrinthine passageways lead to the 'holding area.'

Even now, though Hinata is dead herself, she feels a sense of foreboding, an evil that makes her intractable palms sweat. She has always hated having to come to the euphemised 'holding area'; even now, she feels like the passageways are too narrow. She fancies that she can hear the terrible groans and screams, though they have not yet reached their destination and it is only her imagination.

Perhaps Hinata, too, will be held in the so-called "holding area," once she is done her mission. After all, she is nothing more than a zombie with a necromancer's eyes whirling in her head. She banishes her ridiculous thoughts with a shake of her head. Hinata clutches her supply bag closer to her chest and strides forward.

She is not afraid. She cannot feel fear.

This is what Hinata tells herself as she strides down the dark tunnel, Sasuke beside her like a silent shadow.

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><p><em>Thanks for reading! Please review:)<em>


	24. Sensei

_a/n _Hey guys, thanks for being so patient for this next chapter. I've had a really insane month, and last week, I realized that my "best friend" of twenty years is no longer my friend AT ALL. That really pulled the rug out from under me. You ever have those friends who you love so much, then turn out to be really cruel, abusive people who treat you badly? All the sudden, I'm like: wow. I've had an abusive friend for twenty years, and all this time I thought we were BFF...WTF?

Anyway, I'm sad, but I'm also relieved and amazingly uplifted that this draining person is now no longer in my life. Creative writing has been a huge therapy for me, and so I thank all my wonderfully supportive readers so much for all their kind words of encouragement:) Special thanks to **Uchiha.s** for betaing this chapter and for her pep talks.

Lol, enough of my overshare:) I love you all, enjoy the chappy!

_~~~~~~~~~~~~~published to Hide-n-Seek by Imogen Heap, Roksonix dubstep remix. I'm so obsessed with this song:)_

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><p>Chapter Twenty-Four: Sensei<p>

_I'm troubled, I'm troubled_

_I'm troubled in mind_

_If trouble don't kill me_

_I'll live a long time_

-I'm troubled I'm troubled, Traditional

The subterranean chamber flickers with torchlight. It is so vast that the far walls are ensconced in shadow; the vaulted ceiling is obscured from sight. There is just enough light to see the zombies rattling their chains, their faces skewed as they make grotesque noises. Sound reverberates off the stone, amplifying every scream and groan like a caricature of hell—it's all fake. Hinata knows first-hand that the damned _things_ can't feel pain. They just want to annoy their captors; they are, after all, the reanimated corpses of infamous ninja. They'll do anything for a rise.

Instead of red horned devils with pitchforks, ANBU guards wield shuriken, kunai, katana, and other sharp objects that look more like farming implements gone awry. The guards down here seem to have expected Hinata and Sasuke. They pause in their hacking and thwacking to offer them a half-wave before they go back to work.

One pig-masked ANBU is busy bludgeoning a body into submission while another ANBU severs the body's limbs and shackles the hacked-up bits to the wall. Though the dungeon is well-equipped with chakra-resistant manacles, they often break due to the force of the reanimation jutsu. It's a sisyphean task: as soon as one zombie is dismembered and restrained, another breaks free of its restraints, its limbs hurdling towards the rest of its body to reassemble and wreck havoc.

It was nice when the sealing jutsu worked, when the ANBU could wrap up the undead in scrolls, there to rot in whatever dimension they were sealed to. But over time, the zombies' chakra has grown resistant to sealing. Even the toughest sealing spell from ancient Whirlpool is not enough to seal these fuckers. Hinata thinks that, even if the zombies are sealed inside of the Death God's own stomach, they would find a way to crawl back out and reanimate.

Hinata runs a bony hand through her tangled hair. This sucks. She has never liked coming down here for "holding center duty"—hacking apart the undead is not her favorite past-time. Though that is not her mission today, she is still uneasy about being here. Nevertheless, she promised that she would help Sasuke, and she will.

"Sasuke," Hinata says, "Konoha holds about one-quarter of the zombie legacy left by Uchiha Madara. Do you remember—"

"I have the Sharingan," he mutters. "I remember every single one. Are Momochi Zabuza and Haku here, or…?"

Hinata shakes her head, handing Sasuke a clipboard and a pen. "They're at the Mist holding area. Naruto will be bringing them by later today," she intones in the voice of a shopkeeper taking inventory. "Why don't you start by writing down all the names of the undead Madara summoned, starting with the Konoha nin and—"

"I get it, I get it," Sasuke snaps. He turns away from her, ostensibly to take zombie inventory, but Hinata places a hand on his shoulder to stall him.

"Wait. Are Zabuza and Haku—"

"Yeah. They're _my_ little zombies." Sasuke shrugs Hinata's hand off of his shoulder and strides forward into the gloom.

Hinata is left staring after him. Sasuke has only reanimated two corpses—why those two? And for that matter, what was Sasuke doing, reanimating zombies, if he was only going to make two of them? Didn't Madara tell him—

No. Hinata supposes that Madara _wouldn't_ tell Sasuke shit about the dangers of using the Mangekyo to reanimate the dead. Who knows? Maybe Madara had wanted Sasuke to keep him company while he spent the rest of eternity making other people miserable.

Still, the mystery remains: why Zabuza and Haku? The answer comes to Hinata with a start—if Sasuke had wanted to know the truth about the afterlife, it would have made sense for him to question these two. In the end, Zabuza had a change of heart and helped defend the very people he had been hired to harm. Haku, while he committed atrocious crimes, did them as an act of love for his master. Could it be—could Sasuke have wanted to know the fate of misguided shinobi who, in the end, tried to repent for their misdeeds?

For some reason, even though this is all complete conjecture on her part, Hinata believes that it is true—she believes that, like Zabuza and Haku, Sasuke is just another lost soul; another broken tree whose limbs twist and turn in the shadow, searching for the light from the midst of great darkness and becoming disfigured in the process. In the end, can Sasuke sacrifice his life and thereby right all his wrongs? What awaits him in the afterlife?

Hinata sighs. Then she proceeds to be startled by her own sigh—for breathing should be impossible for a dead person—and she loses her train of thought entirely. It's disconcerting to be a zombie, Hinata thinks wearily. One can't even have a decent conversation with oneself.

Shaking her head to rid herself of ridiculous thoughts, Hinata walks up to the nearest ANBU member hacking apart errant zombies. "Excuse me, but do you happen—"

"Oh thank Kami, my shift is over," the man mumbles, his thick voice sounding oddly familiar even as it is muffled by a monkey mask. "Let me just finish with this one, then I'll hand it over to you." He bends over a mashed amalgamation of limbs and picks out a twitching arm. The arm reaches out with a claw-like hand, but the ANBU slaps it.

"None of that, now. Be a good zombie and wear your bracelet," he mutters, shutting a manacle over the arm with a snapping sound.

"Er…sorry, I'm not here to relieve you. I'm here to set up the spell—" Hinata mumbles, but she is cut off by the man in the monkey mask once more.

"Aw, shit. It's my last day and they won't even let me off early." The ANBU sighs, then looks up at Hinata through the eye-holes in his mask. "Wait—Hinata-chan, is that you? Your chakra is different—but of course. I heard about what happened to you; I'm so sorry." The man shoves his mask up over his head, revealing two black eyes soft with sorrow.

"Asuma-sensei?" Hinata whispers. She had forgotten that Asuma might be here. He is one of Madara's zombies. It had been awkward when he didn't die along with Kabuto's hordes, but somehow he and Kurenai have worked it out. Though Asuma doesn't leave the Holding Center without his mask on, he does have regular contact with his loved ones, while he isn't on zombie-hacking duty.

Asuma sighs, and Hinata marvels at that—Asuma is a zombie too, yet he is sighing, and it does not feel feigned. But how? How can he feel—how can he look down at her with those sad, sad eyes, if he is nothing but a hollow, animate shell?

"Come on, kitten," Asuma says softly, "help me chain up this last zombie. There's something I need to talk to you about."

Hinata nods dumbly, locking up various and sundry bits of zombie to the walls. She takes a leg that quivers like jelly and a chunk of abdomen, wraps them with chains, arranges them like preserves on the caged shelves, then finishes it all up with a seal.

"There," Asuma grunts, "that should hold him for a while. This one is a real bastard: every time he manages to reattach himself, he tries to maul the guards. Almost took out an ANBU member the other day."

Hinata shudders. Will she end up like these unfortunate psychopaths, her limbs and organs lining the walls of the dark cavern until, like the irresistible pull of a magnet, her bits and pieces reconvene, destroying all seals and people in her path? Asuma seems to sense her distress; he puts a comforting arm around her shoulders and leads her to a quiet open area by the far wall.

"Come on, Hinata-chan. You know they're not all as bad as that. We only have to hack up the _really_ crazy ones."

Hinata sits on the ground and cradles her head in her hands. She knows that the undead who can restrain themselves are kept in more normative prison cells, and that those who cooperate are even utilized for missions—the undead like Asuma-sensei, for example—but this does not lift her spirits.

"We're not so different from the psychopaths," she whispers, not bothering to look up. "What's to keep us from going on homicidal rampages, anyway? We're zombies. After a while, I'll lose all sense of memory and morality, and I'll—"

"Who told you that? It's not like that," Asuma insists. "Trust me; I've been a zombie for what, five years now? Call me an expert," he teases, but his jocular tone is lost on Hinata. Asuma sighs again before continuing, "Have I ever gone on a homicidal rampage? I bet half the time, you forget I'm a zombie, don't you Hinata-chan?"

"I suppose, but—Asuma-sensei, can you _feel_ things? Can you feel your body, or taste your food, or dream, or—"

"Whoa there, little lady," Asuma protests with a laugh. "No, I can't really feel my body, at least, not very well; and I don't need to eat, or dream. But I'm _me_, and nothing is going to change that—not even death. Besides, aren't you going to be included in Sasuke's Final Strike? You won't have to worry long, kitten. We'll finally be able to sleep."

"No—I… I have another way," Hinata replies haltingly, fingering the red vial hanging from her neck. "I'll be able to be fully alive again, one day. But it will take a very long time."

Asuma nods wisely. "Ah, that's right. You didn't become a zombie in the usual way… I'm glad Tusnade-sama found a way to put you back together. If you didn't want to wait, you could come with me and all the rest," Asuma offers, gesturing towards the cavern around them. "Still, if you have a chance at living again, it's probably better for you to wait."

Hinata's eyes are wide. She hadn't even thought of joining the ensuing mass re-death, and while it _is_ appealing, she muses that Asuma is right. Besides, if she waits until Naruto is dying, and has the power to resurrect him in order to regain her own life, well, that's probably worth waiting for. It's good for Konoha, at least—an extra life for their Hokage.

"I am tempted to go with you," Hinata whispers at last, "but I think…probably…I should wait."

"That's good to hear, Hinata-chan. Life is precious; you should keep on trying and never give up." Asuma gives her a curious, bird-like look before adding, "After all, I'm sure Kurenai, Shino, Kiba, and Neji would agree with me. They're all your dearest friends, right?"

Hinata finds herself smiling. "You're forgetting Akamaru," she adds. Both she and Asuma chuckle quietly at that, and Hinata remembers the people she would like to live for: if not for Hanabi, then for her adorable nieces and nephews. If not for her father, then for Neji-nisaan; if not for Naruto, then for her own teammates, for the people who are precious to her.

She'll live on for Sasuke, too. She'll use what he's taught her, and she will make a name for herself. She owes it to him, but most of all, she owes it to herself.

"Don't give up hope, sweetling. Being a zombie isn't all that bad," Asuma murmurs. "You could have died when you stopped that spell, right?" Hinata nods her head. "Well, you didn't die, at least not all the way. So you've got a second chance. Sure, it's not how life was before, but why not make the most of it?"

Asuma looks like he's about to say more, but someone is striding towards them with quickly. "Asuma-kun, there you are! Are you slacking off on your last day?" She laughs, and then her gaze falls on Hinata. "Hinata-chan? Is that…?"

"Kurenai-sensei!" Hinata cries. She is on her feet and embracing the older woman, and soon Hinata is weeping on her shoulder.

"Hinata-chan," Kurenai murmurs into Hinata's hair.

Hinata's body is taking shuddering breaths, and tears are falling from her eyes "Oh sensei, I'm s-so s-sorry!" A part of Hinata marvels at her tears, as if her tear ducts are living and can cry just like normal eyes; her lungs are shaking with cold air, just like real lungs. What is this, these feelings rattling around inside of her ribcage—the sadness which exists inside of joy, the happiness that is suspended inside of sorrow? It is like water living inside of fire, or fire burning inside of water: incomprehensible, miraculous; strange.

"Hush now, it's all right," Kurenai whispers. "I told Asuma everything; I hope it wasn't presumptuous of me to tell him?"

"N-no, it's a-all right. But how…?"

"How did I know?" Kurenai teases with a kind smile. "I'm your sensei, it's my business to keep tabs on you. Shino and Kiba have been dying to see you again—oops! Bad word choice," Kurenai mutters, blushing and covering her lips with her hand.

"Anyway," Kurenai continues after an awkward pause, "Kiba and Shino don't have clearance to come in here, but they gave me a message: they are going to personally help you get your life back. Neji said he'd help as well, and you can always count on me. We don't know what the deal is, exactly, but the word is that you have a jutsu that can bring you back to life?"

When Hinata nods an affirmative, Kurenai smiles broadly. "Good. It's settled then. After you help with the spell tonight, Team Kurenai won't rest until Hinata-chan is back to her usual self!"

Hinata doesn't have the heart to explain the details of the jutsu—she doubts Team Kurenai will be able to kill the Hokage so that Hinata can bring him back to life. After all, what if the spell doesn't work? Then Konoha would be in real pickle. "Thanks, Kurenai-sensei," Hinata whispers, feeling firmer despite the impossibility of her sensei's offer.

Asuma clasps Hinata on the back. "Well Hinata-chan, I'm going to spend my last few hours taking the gang out for barbecue. I'll see you again soon."

Hinata blinks up at Kurenai and Asuma and blurts out, "But—Kurenai-sensei, don't you want to keep Asuma-sensei here? Don't—"

"Asuma has suffered enough. While we've made the most of a strange situation, I'm sure Asuma is ready to move on," Kurenai says with a bright smile. Kurenai doesn't seem sad, and Hinata supposes that she's had five years to prepare for Asuma's eventual death—maybe watching a loved one die gets easier the second time.

"Besides," Asuma calls over his shoulder as the two depart, "Sasuke can't deal Final Strike if all of Madara's zombies don't go down with him. See you later, kitten! And don't forget what I told you!"

"Have fun!" Hinata calls after them. It seems like the right thing to say, even though she's not sure if having barbecue night with a zombie before he's sent off to his (final) death is really anyone's idea of a good time. But then again, Asuma and Kurenai are making the most of a fucked-up situation: they seem happy, or at least happy enough, and who's to say if that is wrong or right?

Maybe there is hope for Hinata, after all.

Hinata shakes her head, figuring that where she stands is a good a place as any to set up the runes for the spell. She unrolls the large scroll, reading the directions with her doujutsu-enhanced eyes so that she won't forget a single detail. She'll make the best damn spell she can, and she will help send all the wakeful dead to their final resting places. It's the least she can do for these tortured zombies; for Asuma; and for Sasuke.

As Hinata draws on the floor with herb-infused ink, copying the strange characters with care, she thinks about the future. Perhaps, after this is all over, she will ask to be apprenticed to Erishiki. She'll have a long, long time to learn all of the sorceress's magic before she'll have to return to Konoha, ostensibly to Naruto's death-bed. There are no wars looming on the horizon, and she's heard that those descended from the Uzumaki line are notoriously long-lived. She has a sinking feeling that Naruto's not going to die—and she will not get to live—for a while yet.

That's all right, though. Just think, Hinata tells herself, how happy Konoha will be when she saves the Hokage's life. Hinata will become a celebrated hero, a seasoned and knowledgeable kunoichi, old and wise; vanquisher of zombies, bearer of both the Byakugan and the Sharingan. She will make a name for herself by being an anomaly, and by using her strangeness to her own advantage.

She will become great.

If only, Hinata wishes; if only Sasuke would be there to see it.

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><p><em>Thanks for reading! Please review;)<em>


	25. A Thousand Suns

Welcome back, friends! I have two points to share with you:**  
><strong>

Number one. Things are REALLY picking up at work, we are looking for housing and hopefully will be moving, and I will be participating in Story-A-Day in September (google that, it's awesome!). So I am needing a short break from fanfic. **I will be updating this fic again in about one month. ** I promise you, I will update as soon as I am able. If only I got paid to write fanfic... Le sigh. Sorry for the wait, but I got to take care of business.

Number two. **I just wrote my first sex scenes in fanfic!** Lol. Granted, they are pretty tame and definitely _not_ M rated, but still, I'm awfully proud of myself. Dang it, sex scenes are hard to write! If you would like to read it, it is in the 34rth chapter of "Song of Aether," which I just updated. The second scene is a NaruHina, and the third and final scene is SasuSaku (even though we all know that SasuHina is the OTP...). Check it out if you feel so moved!

Thanks to all my fabulous readers. Thanks to **Uchiha.s** for beta'ing, as always.

Enjoy the next chappy:)

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><p><strong>Chapter Twenty-Five: A Thousand Suns<strong>

_Life's evening sun is sinking low_

_A few more days and I must go_

_To meet the deeds that I have done_

_Where there will be no setting sun_

_-_A Beautiful Life, Traditional

This is it: the floor is laid out in runes, and torches glow from every sconce. The wide cavern is filled to bursting with the undead.

"They're all here," Sasuke states, handing off his check-list to Tsunade. "All one-thousand-seven-hundred-and-seventy-two of them."

A chorus of voices, rasping and crazed, call out:

"Hell yeah, baby! Take me to the fucking afterlife!"

"Fuck you, Uchiha scum! Suck my hairy, putrescent balls in hell!"

"Whoo-hoo!"

"Would you idiots shut the fuck up," Sasuke snarls. His scarlet eyes flash, and the room quiets. "Thank you."

Tsunade rolls her eyes. "Good. Say your goodbyes, Uchiha-brat—you're finally going to die," she calls, sardonic, but not entirely unkind. By Tsunade's elbow, Sakura whimpers.

"Tch. Sakura. Don't cry. You and the Moron have cried enough for me the last time I died. I should know—I went to the memorial services."

Sakura offers a timid smile, wiping away her tears with the heel of her hand. "I—I love you, Sasuke-kun," she blurts out.

Sasuke seems to sigh. "I know. I—never hated you. And I never really thought that you were useless, either."

"I know," Sakura whispers. Smiling through her tears, she leaps forward and flings her arms around Sasuke. "I know," she says again into his hair, breathing deeply.

At last, the two step away from each other. Their eyes lock; they exchange silent, wordless whispers.

Hinata stands behind Sasuke, watching. She has never felt so much like an eavesdropper as she does right now.

"Oi, Bastard!" Naruto shouts, his bluster doing little to hide his cracking voice. "Come on, my turn! Tell me how you never _really_ thought I was an idiot!"

"Tch, I'm saying goodbye. I'm not going to lie to you—Idiot."

"Oi!" Naruto steps forward with a trembling grin and punches Sasuke in the arm. "It was good to see you again, brother…" Naruto trails off. He gazes into Sasuke's eyes, and the look they share lasts a long time; their eyes shine with things that were hidden. Naruto throws his arms around Sasuke, who hugs Naruto back, gingerly.

"Take care of Sakura, Naruto. And promise me—no more fucking memorial ceremonies. If you want to remember…get drunk or something, instead. Do something—anything—besides crying like a big baby."

"Eh, sounds like fun," Naruto whispers, unshed tears glinting in his eyes. "I'll miss you—Sasuke-kun."

"Hn," is Sasuke's only reply, but he is smiling faintly.

Sasuke turns to Tsunade and offers a gruff, "Thanks."

"You're welcome, Sasuke-kun," Tsunade replies with a grin.

At this point, Hinata feels cold and forlorn, like a single mitten that's been left in a snowbank: frozen, frayed; forgotten. But of course, Hinata reminds herself that she doesn't _feel_ anything—she is dead. After all, maybe she was never that important to Sasuke, and she should stop—

"Hinata." A heavy hand lands on her shoulder, startling her. Her wide white eyes flicker up to Sasuke's.

"Sasuke-kun," Hinata blurts out, "it will be a long time before I die. But when I do, I'll find you—I'll save you from hell."

"Tch. So dramatic," he says with a smirk, but his eyes hold only kindness. "You've already saved me."

Hinata blinks up at him in confusion; he takes advantage of her stupefaction and wraps his arms around her, awkwardly. She hugs him back with sweating hands.

"I…" Hinata begins, tongue-tied.

Sasuke pulls back slowly. "Don't let those two," Sasuke says, gesturing with his thumb towards Naruto and Sakura, "don't let those two boss you around. Kick some ass after I'm gone, Hinata-chan."

Hinata smiles her slow, bright smile. "I will, Sasuke-kun. Thank you—for everything."

"Hn." He offers her a wry grin, clasps her on the shoulder, and looks into her eyes for a long, long time. His black eyes are bottomless; she drowns in a night without moon or stars.

If Hinata had been alive, she would have stopped breathing. As it is, she swears that she hears an unfamiliar drumming in her chest, as if her heart is beating; surely, it is only her imagination.

Sasuke turns around abruptly and the moment is over.

"Well," he mutters, "let's get me dead already."

There is an ear-splitting cheer that rises up from the zombies, who are chained together in myriad, single-file rows. They raise their shackled hands and clank their chains. Other undead, like Asuma, give a bittersweet smile to their loved ones before rejoining the crowd.

The undead all look happy, Hinata thinks—or if not happy, then at least content, or expectant. Hinata is glad for them—glad for everyone. Things are finally working out, she tells herself; she ignores the sinking sensation in her withered stomach, and blames her blurry vision on the dusty cavern.

"Get the civilians out of here!" Tsunade barks as she steps forward, her hands glowing blue with chakra. And then she calls, more gently, "Step into the center, Sasuke-kun."

Sasuke strides over the concentric rings of runes, his footfalls echoing throughout the sudden silence. Out of the corner of her eye, Hinata sees Naruto and Sakura holding each other, crying softly.

For once, Hinata is not jealous of them. Granted, she stands alone, but she stands strong. She is smiling. She feels blessed to have spent the last month with Uchiha Sasuke. And though he's passing over into the next world, in a way, he'll always be with her. Cheesy, yes, but true all the same.

"Naruto-kun," Tsunade calls, "you'll need to hurry—retrieve Madara before I activate the spell."

"Okay," is the hoarse reply, and Naruto is gone in a yellow flash.

Tsunade's face twists in a scowl. "Hinata! Sakura! Get behind the safety line. I don't want you two getting caught up in this."

Hinata makes her way to the edge of the room, standing beside Sakura. It's awkward to be in such close proximity to the Hokage's wife. Hinata bites her lower lip, remembering all the times she had been sick with jealously while stalking Naruto and Sakura from afar. Even though it happened in what seems like the distant past, and Hinata no longer harbors any feelings of ill-will towards the Hokage's wife, it feels…unnatural to be standing so close to her, at a time like this.

Sakura must be thinking the same thing; she spares Hinata a strained smile which looks more like a grimace. Hinata nods and turns away from Sakura, ostensibly to watch the spell.

There's no more time for further awkwardness, for Naruto flashes back into the room, a bundle of bones in his hands. With hurried movements, he dumps the bones next to Sasuke in the center of the circle, then scurries to the sidelines to stand with Sakura and Hinata.

"Sasuke-kun," comes a wretched rasping voice. Hinata squints her eyes and sees that the bones are alive, covered in a thin skin; in their midst is a shrunken head, its eyes covered with heavy black cloth. "Sasuke-kun," it croaks again, "what a pleasant surprise."

"Madara," Sasuke replies darkly.

"Have you come to take me to hell with you? Oh, wonderful," croaks the head. "I was getting bored of simply being dismembered and dipped in boiling oil every day."

Sasuke clucks his tongue in annoyance. He takes out a strip of cloth and stuffs it in Madara's mouth.

"All right," Sasuke mutters, "let's do this."

Tsunade grunts an affirmative and slams her glowing hands down on the floor. The network of runes begins to glow; soon, they crackle and burn with power.

Sasuke's face is illuminated in eerie blue; he is cerulean and still, like a painted statue. Hinata can't take her eyes away from the lines of his face, hard yet soft, like the contours of rolling hills at twilight. His eyes close, and it makes him look peaceful, as if asleep. Hinata's hands lift up into the air, as if she might touch those sallow cheeks, his skin electrified with pale ultramarine.

Tsunade, kneeling on the outside of the circle, begins chanting. The words are strange and lilting, as if she speaks a language better suited to songbirds, or sonorous whales. As she sings, the runes glow brighter, and the light around Sasuke intensifies. He is bathed in red, then orange, then the brightest yellow; it is like looking into the sun at high noon. And though Hinata's eyes burn, she does not look away from him.

Streams of light branch out from Sasuke's feet and snake around Tsunade, who sits in a protective circle of runes. The sinuous tributaries of light rush towards the assembled undead, all silent with heads down, as if in reverence at a temple service. As the light gushes forward and covers the congregants, the undead glow with the same molten light that covers Sasuke, a blinding gold and white that shines with the brilliance of a thousand suns.

It's quite hot in the cavern, but Hinata hardly notices. Her eyes are still fixed on Sasuke—Sasuke who is burning; Sasuke who is dying. She does not feel much of anything besides a stillness, like the suspended moment between jumping and falling. There is a disembodied, floating quality to it, of eternity stretching out beyond Hinata's reckoning.

Beside her, Hinata senses that Naruto and Sakura feel much the same. They are not weeping; in fact, they are hardly breathing. Hinata knows without looking that they are burning their retinas just as much as she is, staring into the conflagration that is the sun and Sasuke and something that breathes beyond life and death; the doorway to white, endless light.

Just when Hinata thinks that she might go mad, or blind, or both, there is a high-pitched shriek. The light burns hotter, brighter; Hinata swears the flames are lapping at her own body, that she will burn—

Just as soon as it had appeared, the blinding light is gone. The smell of burning flesh hangs in the air, but it is not Hinata's flesh. She blinks away the afterimages of the light, because the light is gone and they are cast in the darkness of the cave once more: a darkness that seems all the more pronounced, now that the light is absent. She shivers, as if from cold, and activates her Byakugan.

The endless cavern is empty; there are ashes where the rows of shackled zombies once stood. She swings her gaze over to the center of the circle. Where Madara's bones and shriveled head once lay, there is nothing but ash. Next to the ash—

Next to the ash is an unmoving heap. Hinata steps forward on shaking feet and focuses her Byakugan. The lump resolves into limbs, protruding bones; a ribcage pulled taunt against thin, smoldering skin. It's not ash—not yet—but the blackened skin is quickly dissolving, and the wide, toothy grin in the charred face is Sasuke's.

Was Sasuke's.

Sasuke is dead.

Hinata howls. Furious tears pour down her cheeks. She tears at her hair and stumbles forward with the movements of one drunk, or mad. For Sasuke is dead, and a part of her—the small part of her that was not dead yet—is surely dying.

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><p><em>Thanks so much for reading! Please review:)<em>


	26. No Words

You are all wonderfully patient readers, you know that? This has been such a full couple of weeks: multiple family visitors, partaking in story a day, looking for housing, designing websites-lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Haha, I have been having fun though. And I'm so glad I had some time to update this fic!

Special thanks to **Uchiha.s** for beta'ing; you slay me with awesomeness, as always.

Thanks to all my amazing reviewers! I'll be writing you personal thank-you's for your reviews to last chapter later this afternoon/evening:)

I will do my very best to update as soon as I can, hopefully within the next three weeks.

Much love, and enjoy the chappy:)

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><p><em>"Oh he taught me to love him and promised to love<br>And to cherish me over all others above;  
>How my heart is now wond'ring no mis'ry can tell<br>He's left me no warning, no words of farewell."_

-_Wildwood Flower, Traditional_

**Chapter Twenty-Six: ****No Words**

Hinata is kneeling by Sasuke's charred corpse. She can't see him because tears blur her vision, but she can smell the acrid stench of his burnt flesh. She is wailing like a wounded animal; her screams reverberate off the stone walls and echo back at her. It is as if an entire army of Hinatas are wailing: the room is full of her sonic grief.

Hinata is so beside herself that it feels like another person is weeping, another person is screaming; gods, Hinata didn't know she had it in her. Why is she weeping like this**―**weeping when she should be _happy?_ Kami knows Sasuke wanted to die; it's all he ever wanted.

Hinata takes Sasuke's head**―**no, it feels more like a skull; it's been burned free of flesh and brains, it's so light**―**and she cradles it in her shaking hands. She can feel the last remnants of Sasuke's flesh turning to ash in her fingers, a fine grit that stings her skin. She slumps over his remains and weeps, letting her tears wash his skeletal face.

She is blinded by tears, but she imagines what Sasuke used to look like: black eyes that distilled the darkness; lips turned askew in a permanent smirk, or scowl; the planes of his face, as inscrutable and regal as a snow-covered mountain.

What will she do, now that Sasuke is gone? Who will stand sentinel over her while she sleeps? Who will drink tea with her in the morning**―**no**―**who will learn what tea tastes like by watching her drink? Who will look at the lines of her face and find the things that she has hidden?

With a start, Hinata realizes that she has lost a true friend, one who held her in silence; one who did not try to encapsulate her with words. Her secrets are dead now, they have been burned along with Sasuke's corpse. Hinata is an empty husk. Who is she, if there is no one who understands her**―**who _knows_ her?

And how is she crying? How is she howling? How is she feeling this terrible, throbbing sorrow that makes her insane with grief? She is _dead, dead, dead, _but not really**―**she's only half-dead, or part-dead, or mostly-dead; and without Sasuke...

Without Sasuke, that part of her is dead, too.

"I love you, you bastard," Hinata mumbles at last, when the tears and the howling subside. "I love you and you never knew it." The truth is, Hinata hadn't figured it out until now**―**when it is too late. She loves him and he is gone. Hinata realizes that she is a fool, because now she's the last zombie anomaly, left in all her loneliness until she can finally live, or die.

That last thought makes her so angry that a fire burns in the pit of her stomach. Rage clears her eyes, and she looks down at the pathetic, blackened face that once belonged to the man she loves.

Except…his face is not all that black anymore. Where her tears have fallen, Sasuke's flesh has solidified. Hinata blinks, slowly, and sees that Sasuke's body is no longer disintegrating. It's as if he is waiting for something.

Idly, she notices a bright red light shining all around her. She thinks that perhaps she has her Sharingan activated, but how should she know? She's not familiar with her upgraded eyes, and she's so disconcerted that she has no idea what is going on.

Stupefied, she looks down at Sasuke's face, watching the rutilant glow bathe his features: here, a nose grows where before there was a black hole. Here, lips plump up from gritty ash. Only the eye sockets remain empty, though the holes have closed up, so that there are empty, fleshy concavities where his eyes should be.

Everything is alive with red light. Hinata's hands are burning scarlet, and so are her eyes. There is something on her breast that burns her skin, hot as a live coal. She frees one of her hands from Sasuke's skull to clutch at the red vial, then snaps the pendant off the chain and rips the stopper off with her teeth.

She's not really aware of what she's doing; it's like she's in a dream, and her movements are dictated by something outside of her. Her hands don't shake as one holds Sasuke's head and one clutches the vial, whose bloodred light intensifies.

She holds the vial to Sasuke's thin, bloodless lips, and she pours the red liquid into his mouth. His body glows, thin skin lit from within like a red paper lantern. As if spellbound, Hinata draws her lips to his and _breathes_, because this is what Erishiki has told her to do; because this is how enchantments and spells are sealed or broken in fairy tales.

Sasuke's body is glowing more brightly now. His skin becomes luminescent, crimson and coral and gold at the edges. At last, the light fades and Hinata sees Sasuke's face. Where empty sockets once gaped, eyes have appeared, though they are closed. His skin is pale pink in the dim light. His ribs are covered with flesh; his arm bones and leg bones are in their proper sockets and are sheathed in skin.

But Sasuke is not breathing. He is not moving. Hinata trembles; there are no signs of life at all. What was this spell for**―**what good was this magic**―**if all that is left is Sasuke's lifeless body? No! She won't allow it, she won't fucking allow it, the gods damn it all.

Hinata snarls, straddles Sasuke around the waist and _breathes_ into his lips, pinching his nose closed**―**it's basic CPR, gods, she isn't thinking, she's just doing. One breath, then another, but he still doesn't wake from his slumber, his eyes are closed, his lungs rise but there is no pulse**―**

Frantic, Hinata draws on every last ounce of chakra and _breathes_ it into his mouth with her breath, because she can't live without him**―**

Sasuke makes a choking, sputtering sound; his eyes flutter open. He regards Hinata quizzically.

"Hinata? Why…why are you straddling me?"

Hinata realizes the compromising position that she and Sasuke are in; the fact that only burned scraps of clothing cover his very naked, very alive body. Her cheeks flush**―**there it is, her long-lost blush, come to find her at last. As if struck by lightning, she falls off of Sasuke and lands in a heap by his side.

"S-s-sasuke?" she stutters. He turns his head towards her and frowns.

"Hinata. I'm…alive?"

At first he sounds confused, then petulant. He scowls at her, and Hinata can't help it**―**she starts laughing hysterically.

"Oh gods, you're alive! We're―alive!" Hinata cries. It hits her then, this warm feeling―the blood running in her veins, her lungs expanding and contracting. She isn't a cold lump of clay anymore. She has a solid body whose branching highways flow with blood and chakra and life.

Still sprawled on the floor, she turns towards Sasuke and grins. She doesn't need words, because she is looking into his eyes. He knows, and she knows: there is life flowing through them and between them, electric and pulsating. She doesn't hesitate or falter as she heaves herself up onto her elbows and finds his lips with her own once more.

His lips are warm on hers; her mouth trembles. After feeling nothing, or nearly nothing, for so long now, the shock waves traveling up and down her body from his touch thunder through her. He brushes a finger against her cheek, a feather-soft touch, and she is burning hotter than the sun; she is born anew.

"I love you," she breathes when they pull away at last.

He grins wryly at that, and Hinata realizes with a start that he knows; that he has known for a long, long time.

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><p><em>Squee:) Please review:)<em>


	27. Tortoise Magic

Welcome back my pretties! Sorry for the long wait. My life has been...stressful :P Suffice to say that each chapter of BoD takes me at least 5 hours to write and edit, and I found myself short on time this last month.

Many readers have been asking me how long this fic is. The answer: 32 chapters. If you want more info, including a rare look at my rough drafts, visit my LJ:

**wingedmercury dot livejournal dot com**

Thanks to all my wonderful readers; your reviews are so kind. I will do my best to personally respond to each and every one of you over the course of the weekend! I wish I had the time to write you each your own SasuHina one-shot!

Special thanks as always to **Uchiha.s**, beta extrodinaire. She's been updating her HP fic Bad Romance, and lemme tell you, it's good:)

Onwards, and enjoy the chappy!

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><p><em>Chapter Twenty-Seven: <em>_Tortoise Magic_

Hinata is _alive_, and pressing her once cold lips to Sasuke's, pulling away long enough to whisper _I love you_. One minute, she is grinning like an idiot; the next, pain shoots out from the tattoo on Hinata's shoulder—the one Erishiki had given Hinata when she had died.

Hintata cries out and falls face down on the ground. When light and smoke explode from her tattoo, the pain increases tenfold; Hinata's screams are muffled in the dirt. After feeling nothing for so long, the pain is searing, its intensity rivaling the ecstasy she had felt just moments before.

"Humans!" comes a familiar voice, hoarse with age, yet strident with anger. "I tell you one simple thing—_one simple thing__!_ You must summon me when you activate the spell! But no, you're too busy sucking face with the Uchiha-brat."

Hinata lays stunned on the ground for a moment, but the pain in her arm is gone just as quickly as it came. She spits dirt out of her mouth and props herself up on her elbows once more, peeking up over the bare expanse of Sasuke's chest. There, glowering down at her, is the sorceress Erishiki. However, the tortoise's beady eyes do not flash with annoyance; in direct contrast to her tone, her gaze is teary.

"Sorry, baachan," Hinata mumbles with a faint smile. "But really, I feel fine—"

"Oh, the human whelp says she feels _fine._ Let me tell you, hatchling, it won't be long before the adrenaline wears off and you will feel like death itself, instead of just dead—or mostly dead—like you were before. Tsunade-chan," Erishiki roars, "help me with the spell."

Hinata lifts her eyes to Tsunade and is surprised to see her; it's funny, but Hinata forgot there was anyone else in the cavern except for her and Sasuke. Tsunade is seated cross-legged on the floor, her chin resting in her hands. "It's been a long time since anyone's called me Tsunade-_chan_," she says, her eyes glinting with mirth. "I've already used up my chakra, sensei; allow my disciple, Haruno Sakura, to help you."

Hinata's eyes flicker to Sakura and Naruto, standing stock-still and stupefied by the far wall; it is as if Hinata sees them for the first time. They are white and trembling. Naruto's mouth is gaping open so wide, Hinata is sure his jaw is brushing the floor. In contrast, Sakura's lips are pressed tightly together, as if she is holding back a cry. Tears pour down Sakura's cheeks, but she does not bother to wipe them away; instead, she is staring at Sasuke with a mix of emotions that Hinata does not wish to identify.

Hinata supposes she can't blame Naruto and Sakura for their reactions. Once again, Uchiha Sasuke has come back from the grave. She knows that it must be quite disconcerting for them, but Hinata can't help herself from snickering. She tries to stifle her laughter, but she makes a strangled, snorting sound instead before flopping down on her back and chortling with abandon. Her laughter resounds throughout the cavern, all barks and snorts and hiccups.

There is just something so cosmically funny about the expressions on Naruto and Sakura's faces. That, mixed with the relief Hinata feels, and the exuberant pulsing of her heart, and the blood buzzing in her ears, makes her feel giddy. She feels like she might rise into the air like a soap bubble, effervescent and multicolored, buoyed up beyond herself.

Impervious to Hinata's hysterics, Erishiki barks orders at Sakura. Her booming voice startles Sakura out of her stupor, though she still strides forward on shaking limbs. Hinata takes a deep breath to steady herself, but she finds the act of breathing to be too exhilarating. A grin splits her face, and she has trouble restraining her manic giggles while she gulps in breaths of air. Never mind that the air in the cavern tastes like burning flesh—it is air, and it rushes into her lungs and out of her chapped lips like a song; it is the push and pull of life energies that she had taken for granted, back when she had been alive the first time.

"Are you…okay?" Sasuke asks, his eyes narrowed in concerned.

Hinata turns toward him and smiles. "I'm—" she begins, but she cannot complete her sentence. Pain, red-hot and angry, blossoms in her chest; it spreads its talons across her ribs and squeezes. Stars dance in her vision before everything goes as black as the darkness in Sasuke's worried eyes.

Dimly, Hinata feels herself coughing—phlegm and blood splatter her arms and chest. There is shouting, and a great pulsating of chakra, and Hinata is lost in the darkness and knows no more.

.

.

.

When Hinata opens her eyes again, she is not met with the endless shadows of the holding area. Instead, the bright florescent lights of the hospital glare down at her. Slowly, Hinata becomes conscious of how she feels. Every inch of her body aches, from the soles of her feet to the top of her head. It's the kind of dreadful, pulsing pain she might feel if she had a violent bout of the flu; or, if her whole body had been trampled by a herd of ninja elephants. She opens her parched lips and moans, wishing that she could fall back into numb unconsciousness once more.

"Hinata?" Someone is there, but it seems like his voice comes from many miles away; she can't quite make out who it is. She groans in response and is startled by the sound of her own voice. Surely, this rasping noise could not have come from her own lips—it sounds more like the grating of machinery, or a death gurgle.

Strong hands snake around her shoulders and prop her up on her pillows. "Come on, Hinata. You can do better than that," the voice demands as she droops on the bed.

"S-sasuke?" She opens her eyes, but her vision is hazy. She can't quite see him, but she knows that it has to be him. Who else would be such an asshole in a situation like this?

Sasuke steadies her against his shoulder, and she is surprised by how gentle he is. "After all we've been through," he mutters, "I can't believe you're still stuttering. Get ahold of yourself and drink this. Tsunade said it will help."

Hinata tries to focus her eyes, but she cannot. All she can see is a large dark blob—ostensibly Sasuke—holding a smaller black blob out in front of him. She tries to lift up her hands to take the medicine from him, but it feels like her limbs are made of liquid—she can't move at all. The effort alone makes white-hot pain shoot up her arms, and she groans again.

Sasuke sighs; his breath tickles her face. He brings the cup to her lips and tilts it, delicately. "Drink," he commands.

Hinata does the best she can, but she lacks control over her lips, and some of the bitter liquid dribbles down her chin. When she has managed to get most of the medicine down, Sasuke wipes her chin with the lightest of touches and lays her back down on the bed with care, as if she is made of porcelain and might break.

"That tasted awful," she gasps at last. Despite the acrid, burning aftertaste, the medicine takes effect quickly: the pain subsides, and her vision clears. She turns her head slowly towards Sasuke.

"I know," is all he says, gazing down at her with a strange, hawkish stare.

Hinata blinks up at him. She is startled by how well he looks—there is color in his cheeks and light in his eyes. Sasuke holds her gaze, and she peers into the depths of those dark eyes sparkling like a star-filled night. She sighs and presses her cheek to her pillow.

There's so many questions she wants to ask him, but she doesn't know where to begin. Finally, she blurts out, "You seem to be feeling well."

He cracks a wry smile at that. "Hm. Sorry. That jutsu you performed…apparently, it took more chakra for you to bring me back to life, than for me to destroy one-thousand-seven-hundred-and-seventy-two-zombies." He shrugs.

Hinata blinks up at him, feeling stupid. "Oh." She closes her eyes, and her mouth breaks into a smirk. "Bastard," she mutters after a pregnant pause. Sasuke laughs at that, and the sound is quiet and cool; it reminds her of a creek rushing over rocks.

"If can you sit up, there's tea."

Hinata's eyes flutter open at that. "Tea?" she echoes, hopeful. She does her best to sit up, but her flailing limbs only destroy the sheets and displace her pillows. With a roll of his eyes, Sasuke sets everything to rights and props her up on her pillows once more. Sasuke's touch is light, and sends sparks arcing over her skin. Her face flushes, and she hopes that he will chalk it up to fever, or whatever it is that is wrong with her.

He moves to hand her a hot cup of tea, but thinks the better of it. "If I give this to you, you'll spill tea all over yourself. Tsunade will kill me—again—if I burn her patient."

"Sorry, Sasuke-kun," she says with a chuckle. "It feels like someone has taken all my body parts and rearranged them in strange and uncomfortable ways." She tries to lift her arms, but they only lift halfway, and her hands flop down at the wrists. She reckons that she looks like a scarecrow. Hinata frowns and tries to use chakra to help move her limbs, but lets out a yelp of pain when it burns her chakra network. "Ugh," Hinata mutters, sinking into her pillows. "What the hell happened to me?"

Sasuke, his face a neutral mask, places an arm around her shoulders once more and brings a ceramic mug to her lips. "Drink."

Hinata would like to snap at him for not answering her question, but she cannot, for the tea is lapping at her lips. She takes a sip and moans with pleasure from the smell alone. First the scent: undertones of evergreen overlaid with smoke, chocolate and cinnamon. Then the taste as the tea touches her tongue, smooth and sweet like syrup; bitter like dark roasted coffee; pungent like cardamon and cloves; spicy like cayenne pepper. The liquid courses down her throat, soothing, intoxicating. It leaves a secondary smokey taste that dances on her tongue. She licks her lips and sighs.

Her senses are unnaturally heightened from having been deprived of smell and taste for so long. As she sips the tea sings along her tongue and throat like an opulent, electric wonder. She nudges the mug with her lips and Sasuke obliges her, tilting it just so. Time becomes illusory. There is only Sasuke, his arm around her, as gentle as a bird's wing, his free hand pouring tea into her open mouth.

When there is no more tea left in the bottom of the mug, she sighs once more and leans back against Sasuke's sheltering arm. She licks her lips again, tasting the last vestiges of the tea. "Thanks, Sasuke-kun," she whispers. Her eyes flicker up to meet his, and she notes with a start that he is blushing heavily.

"Mmmm." He won't meet her eyes, as if he's nervous, or embarrassed. His tongue darts out to lick his dry lips.

"Is something wrong?" Hinata murmurs. She's never seen him act so strangely before.

Sasuke sputters at that. "No…I'm…it's just…mmmm," he mumbles. And before Hinata can question him further, he takes a deep, shuddering breath and brings his face close to hers.

Hinata's eyes are wide, her mouth parts in surprise. His lips find hers and she is lost; he is breathing into her, and his breath is the wind sweeping over the sea. His hands run through her hair, ghost over her face and neck; he electrifies her with every touch. Just when she is sure that she is drowning, or burning, she's not sure which, but surely she is dissolving into him—

"Dammit Uchiha, stop sucking face with my patient. What part of _critical condition_ do you not understand?" Tsunade barks. When had she come in? Hinata hadn't heard the door open.

Sasuke pulls his mouth away from Hinata's and rests his forehead against hers. Hinata's lips tremble with disappointment. He smirks at her and flicks his tongue out, licking her bottom lip before pulling back completely.

Hinata doesn't bother saying anything. She is too flustered by whatever _that_ experience had been. She is blushing all the way from her scalp down to her pinky-toes, and she is having trouble regulating her breathing. She's not sure who she wants to kill more: Sasuke, for making her like this, or Tsunade, for barging in.

Actually, it's not a hard choice. She would like to kill Tsunade for barging in…

Ignoring the awkward tension, Tsunade clucks her tongue and leafs through a few sheets on her clipboard. "Well, you seem to be making a decent recovery, Hinata-chan, judging by _that._" Hinata blush intensifies—a feat which should have been impossible. "Of course, you've been unconscious for a week—"

"A week!" Hinata squeaks. It seems like only yesterday, Hinata had helped to kill and resurrect Uchiha Sasuke. "But that's—"

"Yes, well, splitting your immortal quasi-life in half and shoving it into someone who is more than a little dead can take its toll," is Tsunade's droll reply. "Luckily, Sasuke's been watching over you day and night, getting in my way and snapping rude comments at me while you've been asleep. Yes, he's nothing but _helpful_, that Uchiha."

"Tch."

"You—you've been watching me the whole time?" Hinata says. "That…is incredibly s-sweet."

"Yeah, well," Sasuke grumbles, crossing his arms and sitting back in his chair. "It was either that or go directly to prison."

"P-prison?"

"Tch. You're stuttering again," Sasuke snaps.

Hinata flushes, this time from anger. "You—you're going to _jail?"_

"Yes, he's going to jail," Tsunade interjects, "but not until you're well. I couldn't pull him away from your side without a crowbar, and it isn't worth my effort. Now, Hinata-chan, time for your medical evaluation. Uchiha-brat, out."

Sasuke rolls his eyes, sparing Hinata a sideways grin before disappearing out of the door.

"Tsunade—"

"Hinata," Tsunade interrupts, divining Hinata's question, "that man, until recently, was the most wanted missing-nin in all the Five Nations. Just because he set things to rights doesn't mean we can let him off the hook without a slap on the wrist."

"But—"

"And that's exactly what it will be, a slap on the wrist. He'll only be in prison for six months, and thereafter, he'll be on house arrest for a year. Now really, for someone who used to be a raving homicidal maniac, I don't think the punishment is too great, do you? So," Tsunade continues without pausing for Hinata to answer, "let's look at those injuries of yours."

Tsunade examines Hinata's body and asks her questions, but Hinata's mind is many miles away. Everything feels so surreal. Hinata, who was once dead, is now alive. Sasuke, who was dead, then undead, then dead again, and then revived by Hinata, is in love with her.

Hinata's no expert in these things, but if she can make the great Uchiha Sasuke blush… If he felt anything like she did when they had kissed—all galvanized skin and seared lips— Well then. What is she going to _do_ with the man? For that matter, what is she going to do with herself?

She certainly isn't going to move into Sasuke's prison cell. She isn't going to mope around Konoha waiting for him to serve his sentence, either. On the other hand, she knows she won't be welcome at home, having just disgraced the family name with her impetuous actions, done while alive and undead.

And anyway, the point of everything—the point of _everything—_isn't for Hinata to gain her worth by sitting around and stewing over a man. Hinata bites her lip, her eyes clouding over in thought. Her thoughts turn to Sasuke, and unbidden, his words run through her head:

"_The crime in Mist has gotten worse since the war. They can use someone like you—someone skilled in Water Jutsu, someone with a powerful ocular doujutsu—to ferret out the criminals. They are also short staffed on medical personnel; you've had personal training with Tsunade, and with a legendary sorceress."_

Suddenly, Hinata's gaze brightens, and a smile curves her lips. "Tsunade-sama, when do you think I'll be ready for missions again?"

"Missions? But—"

"Because I want to go to Mist," Hinata says, her voice clear and bright. "I want to make a name for myself."

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><p><em>Thanks for reading. Please review;)<em>


	28. Sun Eyes

My dearest dears. First, I have to say how thrilled I am that this story has reached over 1000 reviews. I NEVER thought I'd be one of those authors...I feel so fabulous, and so lucky to have the best readers ever. I did want to write a one-shot for the occasion, but I'm so swamped with things going on in my life right now, I simply don't have the time T-T But I'm thinking come X-Mass time, I will write a SasuHina and dedicate it to y'all. Because you are awesome:)

I must apologize for the long wait: things are cray cray at work, AND I'm doing NaNoWriMo. I'm also pleased to announce that as of today, I have original works that have been accepted in four online publications! I don't feel entirely comfortable posting the links here, but if you would like to read my original stuff, just write me a PM or a line in your review and I'll share with you:)

Like I said, I'm doing NaNoWriMo this month, but I'll do my best to update as soon as I can!

Special thanks to **Uchiha.s,** as always, for beta'ing and catching my weird mistakes:)

Enjoy the next chappy-only 4 more chapters after this!

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><p>Chapter Twenty-Eight: <em>Sun Eyes<em>

"Mist? I can't let you go to Mist!" Tsunade exclaims, throwing her hands up in the air.

Hinata's face falls. "I**―**I thought that maybe, they could use someone like m-me. I don't want to wait around in the village while Sasuke's in p-prison. And anyway…" Hinata takes a deep breath to steady herself, then meets Tsunade's steely gaze. "I really _do_ want to make a name for myself."

Tsunade sighs as if deflating, and sinks down into a chair. "It's not that. It's just… It's your ocular jutsu," she explains at last. "It's…changed."

"Changed?" Hinata echoes. She knows there's a Sharingan variant stuck in her head, but that should only make her _more_ useful in the field. Tsunade's tone worries her. "What do you mean, _changed?_"

"Sasuke," Tsunade roars, ignoring Hinata, "get the hell in here. And you," Tsunade says, handing Hinata a cup of black, gooey liquid, "drink this."

It's the vile medicine from before. Hinata downs the liquid as quickly as possible, pinching her nose shut so that she doesn't have to smell it. It burns like hell, but it isn't long before her chakra feels replenished and her pain diminishes.

Sasuke ducks in, his hands shoved into his pockets. He gives Hinata a kind of half-grin before he turns to Tsunade. "What do you want, old hag?" he says, scowling. Despite herself, Hinata smiles. Sasuke really knows how to brighten up the room.

Tsunade cuffs Sasuke on the head. "Uchiha-brat," she growls, "activate your ocular jutsu."

"But**―**"

"Do it," Tsunade orders.

"Tch. Fine." Sasuke closes his eyes. When he opens them again, the wheels of the Sharingan turn slowly.

"Keep going, brat," Tsunade says.

Is it Hinata's imagination, or does Sasuke hesitate before his red eyes glow brighter? While the Sharingan in his right eye remains the same, his left eye fades from red to gold. There are no geometric patterns inlaid on his left iris and no commas; it is solid yellow, bright like a small sun.

"W-what's that?" Hinata gasps, fascinated by Sasuke's golden, pupiless eye.

"Activate your chakra, Hinata," Tsunade orders.

"But**―**"

"Just do it," both Tsunade and Sasuke say at once.

With a nervous smile, Hinata channels her chakra into her eyes, gingerly at first, then with increasing confidence when her chakra pathways don't burn.

Tsunade hands Hinata a mirror. She looks into it with trepidation, and is relieved to see nothing more than her regular, Byakugan-enhanced eyes. Her eyes flicker from the mirror up to Tsunade's expressionless face.

"Keep going," Tsuande says.

Hinata nods before regarding the mirror once more. She gathers more chakra and her eyes turn pink, then blood-red with three whirling commas.

"Keep going," Tsunade insists once more.

Hinata is tired, and her eyes are starting to sting, but her curiosity outweighs her discomfort. She funnels as much chakra as she dares into her eyes**―**

The left eye remains the same, but the right turns into a seamless gold disk. "W-what…?" Hinata mumbles, her mouth agape.

"My thoughts exactly. What is it? I certainly don't know," Tsunade grumbles. "Deactivate your jutsu, both of you. And Hinata**―**summon the old bitch."

"W-who?"

"Erishiki," both Sasuke and Tsuande snap at once. Shaking her head, Hinata deactivates her eyes and funnels chakra into the tattoo in her arm. There is a popping sound, then a great plume of billowing smoke that fills the room. It makes Hinata's already sore eyes water; she wishes that Erishiki preferred less showy entrances.

"I was wondering when you would call me," is Erishiki's grumpy reply, once the smoke clears.

"Oh, you were wondering, were you?" Tsunade mutters, hands on her hips. "You have some explaining to do, sensei."

Erishiki laughs roughly at that. "I'll tell you anything you want, Tsunade-chan. But first**―**can an old woman trouble you for a cup of tea?"

While Tsunade sputters and shouts at her sensei, Hinata gazes at Sasuke, who is leaning against the far wall, his hands stuffed into his pockets. His expression is masked, but his eyes are dark and stormy. Hinata thinks that he looks bemused, and just a touch forlorn. She knows the feeling.

Hinata looks away from Sasuke and down at her hands. She's not quite sure _what_ to think about her new doujutsu**―**it's confusing and unsettling, and it brings up the old, aching questions. Who is she? What is her purpose? Why has she been given a power she isn't even sure she is worthy of?

At least she's not alone in her confusion. In a way, she's happy that she and Sasuke share this experience. They are like two halves of a whole, and not just because of their new doujutsu. It's because they are friends, and something more than friends; because they have shared secrets, and burdens, and strange destinies. Because they have never given up on each other.

With that thought, Hinata looks up at Sasuke and cracks a smile. Sasuke holds her gaze for a long time, speaking to her without words. At last, he grins. The darkness in his eyes lifts, like the sun bursting through the clouds. Hinata knows that he understands, and her smile widens.

He saunters over to her bedside and sits down, taking her hand in his. His skin is hot, radiating warmth into her cold fingers. Her pulse quickens. She licks her dry lips, and Sasuke chuckles low in his throat. Hinata looks away from his smoldering eyes, hoping that he does not notice her raging blush.

Suddenly, the moment is broken: Erishiki looms over Hinata, her face inches away. Hinata gives a strangled yelp and presses back against her pillows. Erishiki's beady eyes glare down at Hinata, scrutinizing her, and Hinata feels cold sweat beading the back of her neck. She only remembers to breathe when Sasuke gives her hand a squeeze.

"I see no problem with the hatchling going to Mist," Erishiki mutters at last. Hinata blinks. She had forgotten that anyone besides herself and Sasuke were in the room, and for a moment, she isn't sure what Tsunade and Erishiki are talking about.

"You see no problem with _Hinata_ going to _Mist?_" Tsunade asks in disbelief. "Even though she has a brand new, unheard of**―**"

"Nonsense. I'm the one who put that jutsu there. It's the next evolution of the Sharingan," Erishiki counters, unperturbed. "The Mangekyo was a freak accident**―**bad programming on my account. This is what the Sharingan was _supposed _to turn into."

"And _what,_ pray tell, does it _do?" _Tsunade snaps.

Erishiki smiles widely, and Hinata is stunned. She wonders**―**was this all an elaborate set-up? How long did Erishiki _know_ this was going to happen? Before Hinata can ask, Erishiki, her eyes half-lidded, goes on to explain.

"I'll tell you want they _can't_ do. They have a built-in mechanism that _prevents_ anyone from resurrecting the dead, _themselves_ included. There's also no burning black hellfire that can't be put out**―**that's been nixed, too. What it _can_ do is build the ultimate defense...among other things," she adds, a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. "Hinata-chan, activate your jutsu."

Though Hinata is tired, she complies. She is beyond curious. Once her golden eye is active, Erishiki commands, "All right. Tsunade, hit her with all you've got."

Tsunade gives Erishiki a quizzical stare. "Are you sure?"

The sorceress snorts. "Do it."

Tsunade shrugs, then reels back her glowing fist. Hinata winces, but stifles the urge to hide her face behind her hands. Tsunade's fist lunges forward slowly, _slowly,_ before it comes to a stop about a foot away from Hinata's face. It is as if Tsunade's hands are caught in invisible molasses.

"Impressive," Tsunade says, pulling back and massaging her hand. "What else can it do?"

"Uchiha-brat," Erishiki bellows, "activate."

Sasuke grunts. His eyes flash red, then gold.

"Good. Now Sasuke-brat, stand with Hinata-chan. That's a good boy," Erishiki calls, ignoring Sasuke's scathing look. Hinata feels like she and Sasuke are posing for an awkward family photograph. "Now Tsunade, try hitting Hinata again."

Tsunade nods and draws back her fist. Time slows once more as Tsunade's fist moves forward**―**only this time, when Tsunade's fist stops in the middle of the air, her chakra fizzles and sputters like water on a hot stove. Tsunade is left panting, drained of her chakra.

"That's one hell of a jutsu," Tsunade mutters, sinking down into a seat, her face pale and pinched. "Thanks for the _warning_, sensei."

"Any time," the tortoise replies dryly. "Deactivate your jutsu now, children. Tsunade, I don't see any reason why the hatchling can't go to Mist. Time away from the village**―**time away from the _Uchiha-brat_**―**will do her good. She might even learn a thing or two about her new jutsu."

Tsunade exhales hotly and runs a hand through her hair. "I don't know, sensei**―**what about her clan? They'll never let her go!"

Erishiki laughs, a hoarse, grating sound. "Oh Tsunade, you lack imagination. I have a plan. Nothing would please me more than for Hinata to go on this mission. Though I might request that the hatchling come to _me_ first, just for a week**―**can't hurt to get a little training in first, right Hinata-chan?"

"Right," Hinata mutters weakly. She's not sure of what she's just gotten herself into. But when she looks up into Sasuke's warm, glinting eyes, she regains her smile. "Right!" Hinata says, this time with determination.

* * *

><p>Hinata is sitting in an over-sized armchair in Naruto's office, her feet wiggling impatiently in the plush carpet. It's amazing how much can change in just one week, she thinks, leaning over the Hokage's desk. Her eyes skim paper work that she already knows by heart.<p>

"So there we have it, Hokage-sama," Tsunade calls. "Just sign here, here, and…here."

Naruto grins ear-to-ear as he signs. "Oh boy Hinata-chan, your father is going to be so pissed."

Hinata colors, but only shrugs in response. "That's not my concern anymore," she says. "With your permission, Hokage-sama, I'd like to leave now for my mission."

"Wait!" Naruto shouts. "First, I want to give you the teleport seal**―**just in case anything happens out there. Can't let one of my best friends walk out of here without a backup plan!"

Hinata really blushes now, for more reasons than one. "But Naruto-k-kun, the H-hiraishin seal**―**"

"Well, unless you don't want it," Naruto babbles, "but you know, if you do, I'd be really, _really_ happy to give you one**―**you know? 'Cause it's the least I could do, after everything…"

"S-sure," Hinata stutters at last, taken aback by Naruto's offer. "That would be f-fine."

Naruto gives her a toothy grin before launching over his desk and landing next to her chair. Hinata looks down at her hands and shifts her weight from side to side, feeling awkward.

"Hinata-chan," he says, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder, "I'm sorry for being such an ass. I'm really, really, _really_ sorry. For once, I'm the socially retarded one, and Sasuke is the people person."

Hinata blinks back tears and meets Naruto's gaze. "Naruto-kun...you may have been socially inept, but Sasuke-kun has _never_ been a people person," she manages with a timid smile.

Naruto barks with laughter and clasps her on the back. "It's good to be friends again, right Hinata-chan?"

Hinata offers an enthusiastic nod, because she is too choked-up to say anything. Her eyes water as Naruto places the Hiraishin seal on her arm, though the seal does not hurt. No, it glows with warm, pleasant chakra, like the sun itself is kissing her arm.

When Naruto is done, Hinata stands and throws her arms around him in an impromptu hug. "Thanks, Naruto-kun."

"Hey, my pleasure," Naruto manages though his chuckles, squeezing her back. "You've already said goodbye to everyone?"

Hinata takes a step back. "Almost everyone…" She's managed a teary farewell to Kurenai, Shino, and Kiba. Neji, the only Hyuga who had visited her in the hospital, had come this morning and had wished her well. There is only one person left.

"I'm just going to stop by the prison**―**say goodbye to Sasuke-kun**―**then I'm off," Hinata says. She turns to Tsunade and smiles. "And of course, I have one more important person to thank."

Hinata practically leaps at Tsunade and captures her in a hug. "I'll miss you, baachan."

"Oi, don't get me started," Tsunade calls, her voice hoarse with suppressed emotion. "Take care of yourself now, my little mutant."

Hinata screws up her face and sticks out her tongue at the Godaime. "Yes ma'am!" Hinata calls with a mock salute. Then she adds, more quietly, "And…say goodbye to Sakura-chan for me. Okay?"

Naruto and Tsunade both nod. Hinata hasn't seen Sakura since she woke up from her coma. She assumes that Sakura is avoiding her. That's part of the reason why Hinata wants to leave the village for a while: to give Sakura and Naruto a chance to reaffirm their friendship with Sasuke without being in the way.

She gives Naruto and Tsunade a bright smile. Before Hinata can cry, she strides to the door and exits, her head held high.

There is only one more thing she has to do, and that is to say goodbye to Sasuke. She tells herself that she is not nervous**―**after all, she and Sasuke have spent every waking and sleeping moment together for the last week**―**but still, her heart beats irregularly in her chest, and her palms sweat.

Hinata shakes her head at her antics as she exits the Hokage's tower. Outside, the sunshine baths her face, and a gentle breeze blows back her unbound hair. She knows that once she bids farewell to Sasuke, it's nothing but the open road from here to the Mist.

She tells herself that she won't miss Sasuke that much. But this time, she knows that it is a lie.

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><p><em>Thanks for reading! Please review:)<em>


	29. Goodbyes

Hello all you wonderful people you:) Thanks for being patient for your update. NaNoWriMo was AWESOME by the way-I wrote a 300 page rough draft of an original novel! So...that's where I've been!

Thanks, as always, to **Uchiha.s**, my beta, my friend, my muse:)

Thanks to all my wonderful readers out there. Your comments are always so nice. I will do my best to thank all my reviewers personally tonight-ish.

Quick note-switching to using # to demarcate line-breaks. I'm getting used to professional formatting. Hope it doesn't bother you!

Without further ado...

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><p><strong><em>Chapter Twenty-Nine: <em>_Goodbyes_**

_The judge he fixed the sentence here _

_And the clerk he wrote it down _

_Six months ain't long in the county jail _

_For shootin' up this town_

_Six months ain't long for me to be gone _

_Six months, six months ain't long _

_Six months ain't long for me to be gone _

_Oh darlin' six months ain't long_

~Six Months, Traditional

Hinata enters the prison, the cool darkness contrasting with the bright sunlight outside. She shivers, though she isn't cold, and trudges forward into the silent, vaulted halls. The guards don't challenge her. They know why she is here, who she is here for.

Not wanting to break the sullen silence, she doesn't ask the guards where Sasuke is. She had been too tongue-tied to ask Naruto this morning, when her release from the hospital had been concurrent with Sasuke's admittance to the prison. No matter. She activates her Byakugan and finds him instantly in one of the higher-security units on the top floor.

The placement is more for Sasuke's safety than to prevent him from escaping. There will be only too many who might wish Sasuke harm—he has caused a lot of trouble to the Leaf Village, current events included. And Hinata does not put it past her own her father and sister to try an assassination attempt.

Hinata's stomach clenches with anxiety as her halting footfalls echo in the stairwell. She takes a deep breath and forces the feeling to go away, reminding herself that Sasuke does not have chakra restrictions and will be able to fully defend himself. Plus, Sasuke has the Hiraishin tattoo, and can call the Hokage in the event of anything untoward.

Still, Hinata worries. She feels guilty for leaving Sasuke the minute he is put into jail. Maybe she should stay? _No, no, no, no,_ Hinata chides herself. Now is not the time to be wishy-washy; now is the time to remain strong. It's what Sasuke would want, and more importantly, it's what she wants, too.

She winds around the last of the circular staircase, finding herself on the top floor at last. She doesn't need to strain her Byakugan to find Sasuke. He has the only cell up here.

She strides forward with confidence she doesn't feel, into the light cast by a barred bay window. The sunlight feels strained, and cold, but nonetheless she is thankful for the light. A line of three guards snap to attention.

"Hinata-sama!" the leader says with a hasty salute.

Hinata's mouth curves up into a smile—Hinata-_sama?_ The man does not seem to be mocking her. As the guards snap to attention, Hinata shakes her head, then clears her throat. "I'd like to have a private word with Uchiha-san, if you please."

"Um…ma'am, we're not supposed to leave the prisoner—"

"I'm sorry," Hinata says, her voice steady. "I asked to have a _private_ word with Uchiha-san. You are dismissed."

"Er… Of course!" the guard mutters. The men salute her once more before marching away. However, they hover by the top of the stairs.

"Men, you are _dismissed._ You may wait for me by the foot of the stairs," Hinata calls, her honeyed tone carrying a not-so-subtle edge. "Thank you."

She waits until the sound of their steps fade before turning to Sasuke. Her heart drops, seeing him penned in like an animal. The light slants in through the bars, painting his face with cruel, vertical stripes.

He gives her a bird-like, inquisitive gaze. "You know," he murmurs, "it turns me on when you order people around."

Hinata's sadness leaves her all in a rush as she chortles. "You're incorrigible," she mutters, withdrawing the key to his cell. She unlocks the door with a few jangly clanks until it clicks open. The gate groans as it opens, but she doesn't let the melancholic sounds ruin her bright smile.

She closes the gate with a soft clink and turns to face him. "I'm finally leaving," she whispers, feeling shy, but forcing herself to meet his cool gaze. She suppresses the urge to ask him questions that only fish for compliments—_Are you sure you don't mind? Will you miss me?_ Instead, she steps forward to run her hands through his long hair.

"Six months isn't that long," Sasuke says, his voice even, his features betraying nothing.

But Hinata can read him. She knows what hides behind those inscrutable eyes, the smooth lines of his face. She knows how to draw out his secrets without words—he cannot hide from her.

"No," she replies airily, "six months isn't that long." She snakes an arm up around his neck and draws his face down towards hers. "Still…why don't you _make_ me miss you?"

"Tch. You mean you don't miss me already?" Sasuke says, his forehead touching hers.

"Mmmm," is her noncommittal reply. Though her heart is beating rapidly, and the fine hairs along her neck stand on end, she feigns nonchalance and shrugs. "M-maybe you can't make me miss you," she taunts, twining his hair around her fingers.

She doesn't have time to say anything else, barely has the time to throw up a barrier shield around the prison cell, before his lips crash down on hers. Then, she is lost in him, like a dark cloud dissolving into the night sky.

**#**

"Hokage-sama! Hokage-sama!"

"Whaaaaat? Can't you ANBU see that I'm busy," Naruto snaps, hanging pink and yellow streamers from the village gates.

"It's the Uchiha! Hinata has thrown up a barrier shield around his cell!" the leader of the squad calls, his voice shrill with fear.

Naruto's eyes grow wide. Hinata can't be helping Sasuke to escape—can she?

The ANBU captain presses on. "We can't see through the shield, sir!"

Naruto touches the Hiraishin tattoos on his arm that lead to Hinata and Sasuke. "Hold on," he mutters, his expression grim. "I can check their chakra remotely." Naruto funnels a small amount of chakra into his tattoo—

The backlash of Hinata and Sasuke's chakra signatures is like a blow to the head. Naruto falls to the ground, knocked on his back.

"Hokage-sama! Hokage-sama, are you okay?" the ANBU captain cries, for Naruto remains laying on his back like a dead beetle, with his arms and legs curled in the air. There is a greenish tint to his face.

"That," Naruto says, slowly, as if the words are hard to get out, "_that_ was the grossest thing I have ever sensed. ANBU, the prisoner is secure. Now go—buzz off," he seethes, prying himself off of the ground.

But the ANBU squad stands stock still. "For the love of Kami!" Naruto shouts, "Do you not understand an order when you hear one? I said, get lost! Everything is fine!"

The ANBU squad bows and disappears in a puff of smoke.

Naruto shakes his head from side to side Really, the last thing he wanted to eavesdrop on was…_that. _But then again, maybe it's just karmic payback. Naruto's face breaks out into a wolfish grin. He fends off questions from his friends, and orders everyone back to work.

After all, there's not that much more time.

At that thought, Naruto stifles the urge to vomit. He really wishes he didn't know _precisely _how much time they have left before Hinata reaches the gates…

**#**

Hinata is weaving through the village streets, a half-smile curving her lips. Yes, she will miss Sasuke—it feels like she is leaving the second half of herself behind in the village. But she knows this is for the best. Sasuke wouldn't want her to mope around Konoha for the next six months, making his prison sentence harder to bear.

Besides, she still needs to prove herself. She grins with determination, because she, Hinata—just plain Hinata, sans the surname—is going to kick some ass.

She rounds the last corner to the village gates, where she will sign out her name before departing—

Her breath catches in her throat.

The gates are covered in bright streamers, and once the crowd bursts into sight, handfuls of confetti are thrown into the air, glittering metallically in the sunlight.

"Wha…?" Hinata is shocked and stands still in the middle of the street.

Naruto strides forward, smiling as bright as the sun overhead. Sakura hangs on his arm, reticent, but with a soft smile.

"What, I can't send off one of my good friends on a mission?" Naruto asks her, clasping her on the back.

Hinata smiles a lopsided grin. She hadn't been expecting any parting ceremony, but she should know by now to expect the unexpected from her Hokage.

Kurenai's son breaks through the crowd, jumps into Hinata's arms, and offers her a slobbery kiss on the cheek. She laughs, giddy and lightheaded. Kurenai comes forward to pry her progeny out of Hinata's arms, while Kiba and Shino throw their arms around her in impromptu hugs.

The crowd cheers, and Hinata gazes around her in awe. It looks like the whole damn village has turned out for this, though Neji is the only Hyuga that she sees. She stifles the urge to pity herself, and grins instead, reminding herself that family is what you make of it. When Sakura comes forward and offers Hinata a timid handshake, Hinata smiles brighter than the shimmering confetti stuck in her hair.

Just then, into the amiable cheers and well-wishes, bursts out an irate shout—Hinata catches the tone before the words. It is bitter and cutting. She knows without looking that it is her father.

Her face falls for a moment, before she remembers who she is. She resolves her expression into an even mask before turning around to meet her father. His face is red with rage. Beside him, Hanabi glowers at Hinata.

"What is the meaning of this, Hokage-sama?" Hiashi barks.

"Um…are you upset that you weren't invited to the party?" Naruto asks, genuinely confused. "I didn't think that you would want to come…"

Hiashi hits himself in the face, and it is all Hinata can do to withhold her laughter. It's really very funny to see her father so flustered, and though his anger is directed towards Hinata herself, she does not tremble in the face of it. After all, Hinata has overcome death itself; Hiashi no longer terrifies her.

"Hokage-sama," Hiashi seethes, "how dare you send my daughter to Mist without my permission! She should be branded with the branch seal before she leaves—especially given her proclivities to turning traitor."

Naruto's face twists with anger. It looks like Naruto is going to lunge for Hiashi's throat, but Hinata holds out her hand to stall him. They had all known that it might come to this. She is prepared.

She steps forward, withdraws a packet of papers from her vest, and chucks them at her father. She doesn't speak, simply lets him unfold the paper and waits, her features betraying nothing. As Hiashi's face darkens, however, the corners of her mouth ghost upwards in a smile. She wishes, briefly, that Sasuke could be here to see this.

"What is the meaning of this?" Hiashi hisses, his white eyes wide as they skim the legal document.

"I've given up my surname, Hiashi-sama," Hinata replies coolly. "I'm no longer of the Hyuga clan."

"But that's—"

"When I was dead," Hinata maintains, "I filled out the paperwork to the effect of my last wish: to disaffiliate from the clan." It's not entirely true. Hinata filled out the paperwork _after_ she had become alive once more, and had forged the date—with the Hokage's permission.

"Now that I'm alive," Hinata continues, "I would like to keep with my dying wish—namely, to go by nothing more than my first name. You have no more power over me, Hiashi-sama. I answer directly to the Hokage."

It's a bizarre yet binding legal loophole, and there is nothing Hiashi can do about it. A hushed silence falls over the crowd.

"If you wouldn't mind," Hinata calls, her voice ringing, "I would like to be on my way. I have a mission to complete."

It is Hanabi's turn to speak now. Hinata doesn't listen to the words, all garrulous and grating. They wash over Hinata harmlessly. Hinata's head is held high, and though her eyes are not unkind, they are not sympathetic, either. Hanabi is a ruthless brat, and it's time she had a taste of her own medicine.

"I'll make a deal with you," Hinata says once Hanabi stops her sputtering and falls silent. "Let's spar, you and I. If you can hit me even once before one minute is up, I'll rejoin the Hyuga and have the branch seal put on me. But if you cannot touch me, then you publicly admit that the document is binding."

Hanabi grins, tearing up the document into pieces. "Yes. Let's do that, sister _dearest._"

Hinata shakes her head. Does Hanabi realize that she has destroyed a mere copy of the document—that the futile ripping of paper only makes Hanabi look more foolish? "Come on then," Hinata says quietly. "Just a friendly spar between sisters—right, Hanabi?"

Hanabi doesn't answer as she crouches low in a fighting stance. Hinata shakes her head again. This is the only way Hanabi knows how to rule—kill or be killed. It's not how Hinata is going to run her life.

Kiba catches Hinata's arm and whispers, "Are you sure…?"

"You don't have to do this," Neji murmurs on her other side, his eyes creased with worry.

But Hinata smiles. News of her new ocular jutsu has been kept secret, until now. Stepping forward with a confidence she doesn't have to feign, Hinata beckons to her sister. "Come at me, imouto."

Hanabi launches herself forward, a snarling blaze of glowing fists and wild white eyes. Hinata, impassive, activates her eyes as well, until the left whirls red, and the right glows gold. Hanabi moves towards her with increasing difficulty as the space between them becomes thick like molasses, before she slides down to the ground, deflected by the invisible wall around Hinata.

Hinata doesn't move. She watches as Hanabi tears at her shields with wild, flailing movements. No matter how Hanabi snarls and slams her glowing palms through the air, she gains no ground on Hinata. Hinata looks at her watch. A minute has already passed, but Hanabi is not stopping, and Hinata doesn't release her jutsu.

Finally, just when Hinata's eyes are starting to burn with effort, Hiashi places an arm on Hanabi's shoulder. It is clear who has won. Hinata releases her jutsu, doing her best not to sway with weariness. It is silent. Everyone is holding their breath.

Without betraying her emotions, Hinata bows politely to her father and sister.

"Goodbye," she calls to them. She doesn't know what else to say. She won't miss them, that's for sure.

But unbidden, words roll off of Hinata's tongue: "I—I—love you, otousan, imouto. Take c-care of yourselves…" Hinata can feel herself blushing, but there's not help for it. That damned new jutsu has taken a lot out of her, and she feels her control slipping.

With the last of her chakra, she activates her summoning tattoo. Erishiki appears from a cloud of smoke, as large as a mountain.

"Eh? Ready then, Hinata-chan?" she calls, her wrinkled face split with a smile.

Not trusting her own voice, Hinata nods and climbs up on the tortoise's back. She smiles a bitter-sweet smile and waves to the crowd. There is a roar of goodbyes before she and Erishiki disappear in a cloud of smoke, off for the coastal planes of the sorceress's home.

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><p><em>Thanks so much for reading! Please, review:)<em>

_Will do my best to update before/on X-Mas  
><em>


	30. Letters

Hi all, and happy holidays! Special thanks to my beta, **Uchiha.s,** as always. Also, I finally published an Xmas gift fic, dedicated to all my BOD readers. It's a SasuHina called **The Cursed Geisha, **and it's up at:

** www dot fanfiction dot net/s/8832759/1/**

Or find the link in my profile.

Hope you like it! Once again, thanks for being the best readers ever.

And now, enjoy!

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><p><strong>Chapter Thirty: Letters<strong>

_Tonight while I'm reading your letter_

_You tell me you're going far away_

_I love you my darling yes I love you_

_I love you where ever you stray_

~While I'm Reading Your Letter, Traditional

_Dear Neji-niisan,_

_I hope this letter finds you well, and that all is quiet in Konoha. I miss home more than ever, and am glad that my term here is halfway finished. They don't call it the Hidden Mist for nothing. I don't think I've seen the sun for three months!_

_Besides the gray weather, I can't complain. Mizukage-sama has been more than gracious, putting all of her resources at my disposal. She is as beautiful as she is kind—she really cares about the well-being of her people. It's a pleasure to work for her._

_As for missions, the Mizukage is keeping me busy. I've helped to ferret out a dozen or so crime syndicates. Don't worry, niisan! I was never in any danger. The Mist shinobi are dependable and strong. _

Hinata chews on the end of her quill, because to say that she was never in any danger is a blatant lie. However, if she doesn't want Neji to run to Mist and haul her back home, she's going to have to fib a little bit. Hinata smiles at that. All in the line of duty, she assures herself.

_Anyway, I've also been enjoying working at the medical facilities,_ Hinata writes, and there is no lie there. _The staff here are well-trained, and we have pooled our knowledge of medical jutsu from both of our countries to the benefit of all. I daresay that I have new jutsu to show Tsunade-sama herself. Though don't tell her I said so!_

What Hinata can't write in the letter are the new healing abilities she has discovered in her golden eye. Erishiki had hinted at the possibilities, had given her the tools to develop them, but she hadn't trained Hinata outright. Everything Hinata has learned about the golden eye, she has figured out herself.

With just her Byakugan, she can read a patient's chakra network and see the blockages. But with the golden eye, she can see a bone break down to the smallest hairline fracture. She can spot diseases in their preliminary stages, thus preventing them from advancing without costly and extended treatment. Best of all, the golden light from her right eye augments her own healing ability. With it, Hinata is now on par with Sakura.

Hinata smiles softly as she completes her letter to Neji. He would be so proud of her if he knew about her new jutsu, but that will have to wait until she comes home. For now, it is Hinata who is proud of herself. She reckons that that may be the greatest gift of all.

"Eh, Hinata-chan, almost done with your letters?"

Broken out of her thoughts, Hinata's gaze snaps up to meet the Mizukage's. "Yes, Mizukage-sama. Just one moment!"

The Mizukage smiles as she perches on the edge of Hinata's desk, her long blue robes fluttering around her. "Eh, Hinata-chan, how many times to I have to tell you? Just call me Mei."

"Of course, Mizu—I mean, Mei-sama," Hinata mumbles, her face flushing with embarrassment. She stuffs Neji's letter into an envelope and shuffles it in to a large stack of mail. She's written to everybody—Naruto, Sakura, Tsunade, Kiba, Shino, Kurenai, and Neji. She's even written letters to Hiashi and Hanabi, short, diplomatic notes to the effect of: _I love you, but I am not sorry._

"Um…Mei-sama?" Hinata asks, her voice suddenly timid.

"Hmmm?"

"Um…um…" Hinata shakes her head at her own antics. She's not usually this tongue-tied. Taking a deep breath, she says, "Would you mind terribly if I sent a package via carrier hawk, along with the letters? It's just—I have one friend, and…he's not much of a letter person."

"So you got him a gift instead, hmmm?" Mei answers, her eyebrows raised. "Sounds like a boyfriend to me."

"He's—we're—I—um…" Hinata mumbles, her face turning bright crimson. "I—"

Mei laughs her bright, glassy laugh. "Oh Hinata-chan, you're too cute. Of course you can send a package. Here, give me your mail. I'll deliver them to the mews master myself," she says with bravado.

"Oh Mei-sama, you d-don't have to—"

"Of course I don't have to. I _want_ to. Also, there's a cute guy who works at the mews," Mei says with a wink. "Come on, fork it over."

Hinata presses her packet of letters into the Mizukage's hands. With forced nonchalance, Hinata withdraws the small package from her desk drawer and holds it out to Mei, face down.

Mei smiles a cat-like grin and turns the parcel over. "Ah. Uchiha Sasuke. So _he's_ your boyfriend."

"I—we're—I—"

"So I _finally_ learn who your boyfriend is, after all these months. Good for you. I heard about what you did for him, of course. He's awfully good looking."

Hinata is blushing too furiously to respond at first. "Th-thanks," she mumbles after a long, awkward pause.

Mei simply laughs, leans over to ruffle Hinata's hair, and makes off with her mail. When Mei is no longer in sight, Hinata sits down in her chair heavily and rests her forehead on her desk.

That Mizukage. Taking her mail had all been a ploy to find out about Sasuke. For an all-powerful leader of one of the most fearsome shinobi nations, Mei acts an awful lot like a boy-crazy academy girl.

Smiling despite herself, Hinata forces her blush to cool and turns her attention to the mountain of paperwork on her desk. She is deeply ensconced in her work when Mei waltzes in a second time, perching her derriere on the edge of Hinata's desk once more.

"You sent him tea?" Mei asks, incredulous.

Startled, Hinata looks up and almost spills her inkwell.

"Mei-sama," she says with an exasperated sigh, "it's i-impolite to look through other people's m-mail."

Mei places a hand on her bosom. "Me? Spy? Nothing of the sort. It's basic protocol to go through all outgoing mail. I just happened to stick around while they were checking it."

Hinata leans her cheek on her palm. At least Mei makes no pretense of having read all her letters; that is precisely why Hinata has omitted key facts from her communications.

"Mmmm," is Hinata's taciturn response.

"Come on, Hinata-chan—tea? Why_ tea_?"

Hinata looks down at the stack of papers in front of her. "He likes tea."

"But—"

"But n-nothing."

"Eh, getting information out of you is like pulling teeth from a crocodile. I should set the interrogation squad on you! Imagine, not wanting to gossip about your good-looking boyfriend. Why, if I had a boyfriend like that, I would tell you every single detail." Mei flutters her eyelashes and fixes Hinata with an expectant gaze in a vain attempt to get more information from her.

Hinata just shakes her head. Not for the first time, she thanks Kami that Mei does not have mind-reading jutsu. Instead of replying, Hinata takes a powdered doughnut from the box on her desk and shoves it into her mouth. What was once a baker's dozen is now down to less than half. Hinata has always liked doughnuts, but she finds that the stress of the job—and perhaps, the stress of the Mizukage prying into her personal life—are beginning to effect her waist line.

She hopes that Sasuke likes his women with curves.

Mei flips her long auburn hair over her shoulder and speaks into the silence. "Hinata-chan…you realize you've put on some weight since you've come here," Mei says, as if echoing Hinata's thoughts.

"M-maybe just a little bit," Hinata mumbles around a mouth full of food. "I can't help it that the Mist makes the best doughnuts I've ever had. Anyway, I'll work it off on the next mission. Speaking of which," Hinata says, shuffling her papers, "seems like there's some unrest to the south. It might be another syndicate. I'll go and—"

"Oh no," Mei gasps, "I can't send you on any more syndicate-busting missions!"

Hinata eyes her curiously. "Why not?" When Hinata follows Mei's gaze and sees that she is staring at Hinata's protruding stomach, Hinata winces. "You d-don't want me to go…because I'm f-fat?"

Mei titters at that. "Oh Hinata, you're not _fat."_

Hinata resists the urge to slam her forehead down on her desk. Instead, she takes another doughnut and shoves it into her mouth. It's chocolate covered with sprinkles, and it has some kind of caramel cream filling. After polishing off the delectable pastry, Hinata finally responds.

"Mei. You just called me fat…and then not fat. I'm not self-conscious about my w-weight…" she says, placing a protective hand over her stomach.

Mei scoots off the desk and begins to pace. "You really don't know, do you? Oh, Tsunade is going to love this. She was sure that you knew—she even bet me twenty casks of sake on it." Mei gazes at Hinata. When Hinata just blinks up at her, Mei continues, "You're one of the greatest medical ninja I've ever met. You have fantastical eyes that see through and under everything, and yet…and yet you have no idea. You really have _no_ clue."

Hinata licks powdered sugar off of her bottom lip. "Can we not t-talk about this while I'm e-eating?" Lord, but Neji would kill her if he knew she has grown accustomed to eating thirteen doughnuts for breakfast every morning. But like she said, she can't help it—she craves them. She can't work until she's had her fix.

"Honey, you're not fat," Mei says at last. "You're—"

"Pleasantly plump? Thanks for the f-flattery," Hinata mutters. "Now why is it that I can't go on any more syndicate-busting missions? That's half of the reason why I came to Mist, isn't it?"

Mei stops her infernal pacing and sits in a chair across from Hinata. She rests her elbows on the table and spears Hinata with a hawkish gaze. "Hinata-chan…when was your last period?"

This time, Hinata really does slam her forehead down on her desk. "Mei…really? I don't—"

"As Mizukage, I demand an answer," Mei breaks in, and though there is a hint of teasing in her voice, she really is using her political power to get an answer out of her. Hinata cannot refuse. If the Mizukage demands an answer, then Hinata will have to provide one.

Hinata groans. She lifts her head from her desk, certain that rainbow sprinkles have been mashed into her forehead.

"I don't get periods anymore, Mei-sama. I'm infertile." Those words used to be so hard to say; now, they hardly bother Hinata at all. "Now can we please—"

But Hinata can't get another word in. The Mizukage, feared lord and leader of the Hidden Mist, a woman who can spew lava out of her mouth and boil her enemies alive, is laughing hysterically. Mei falls out of her chair and proceeds to roll around on the floor, chortling and snorting like a pig.

Hinata just shakes her head from side to side and picks out another cream-filled doughnut from her rapidly dwindling supply. Kami, she's really turned into quite a glutton over the last three months, and it's not just doughnuts, either. Her sweet tooth has grown to include cookies of all varieties, fruit pies, and even the special Mist candies made out of chocolate, cinnamon, and fish eyes. She never had sugar cravings like this before; it must be something about Mist Country.

Just as Hinata reaches for the final doughnut, Mei props herself up on Hinata's desk with a wheeze. "Oh, I haven't laughed that hard in ages. Oh Hinata-chan, you are a treasure. An absolute _treasure._"

"Mei-sama, I don't—"

"Hinata-chan—you're pregnant."

Hinata drops the last, most precious doughnut onto the floor. "Wha…?"

"Use those fancy eyes in your head, and your medical training, and put two and two together," Mei offers with a sly smile. "Come on, do it already. I'm not getting any younger."

Hinata stares at the Mizukage. Slowly, Hinata licks her sugar-coated fingers, then activates her Byakugan. The back of her neck beads with sweat as she looks down at her own belly—

And faints.

Luckily, Mei is not the Mizukage for nothing. She catches Hinata before she brains herself on the back of her chair. "Really," Mei mutters to herself, "you've got this powerful ocular jutsu and you can't even see what's right in front of you."

Mei lays the unconscious kunoichi on her desk, right on top of her papers and doughnut crumbs. Then, she reaches for the doughnut that has fallen on the floor and chews it thoughtfully.

"Mmmm, blueberry cream. My favorite," Mei mutters happily, waltzing out of Hinata's office with a spring to her step. After all, she's just won a bet with Tsunade-sama.

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><p><em>Mwhahaha, if you are a reader who predicted that this might happen, leave me a big "I told you so" in your review. You get a gold star!<em>

_Thanks for reading, and please, review:)  
><em>


	31. Hellos

Hello lovelies, and thanks for being so patient. I am really sorry for the delay- I was sick with the flu for two weeks:( Thanks to the amazing **Uchiha.s** for her beta'ing, as always.

I'm having internet issues, so I may not be able to thank you all individually for your reviews, but please know that I love and appreciate every single one of you:)

And now, the second-to-last chappy of Better Off Dead!

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><p><strong><em>Chapter Thirty-One: <em>_Hellos_**

Hinata knows she is running behind schedule—she should have made it to Konoha yesterday. It's not just her big belly or her ungainly waddle that slows her down. It is the weight of anticipation and dread that settle like lead into the soles of her feet.

Hinata has made Mei—and her accomplice, Tsunade—swear to keep her pregnancy secret. No one at home knows, besides Tsunade. Although how well Hinata could have hidden her rounded form from the others in Mist is certainly a factor; any number of Mist shinobi or civilians could have told someone in Konoha about her condition. She hadn't used a henge to disguise it.

That Tsunade. How had she known that Hinata was pregnant? And why hadn't Tsunade told her? In fact, how did she become fertile in the first place?

Hinata shakes her head. Once she had regained her wits after Mei had broken the news to her—and had stolen one of her doughnuts, a crime that would not be forgiven—Hinata had come up with a hypothesis.

It's an improbable theory at best, but it is the only way Hinata can explain the phenomenon that is the fetus gestating in her womb. What if—what if Hinata had been dead, but not quite dead; alive, but not quite alive, with incredible ocular powers that compelled her body to regenerate? What if she had been dismembered while undead, and said ocular powers reassembled her parts?

What if her fairytale eyeballs chose that moment to fix whatever tubes were twisted, whatever hollow places that were unyielding, so that when life returned to Hinata once more, her body became capable of bearing the unthinkable?

Stranger things have happened to her, after all—though her surprise at becoming pregnant had outweighed her surprise at returning to life, strangely enough.

_Well,_ she thinks, _any cow or civilian woman can_ _breed_. That was what Sasuke had told her, once, as they regarded the waves breaking on the moonlit shoreline. He didn't seem to have a high regard for pregnant women, but perhaps his opinion would change if the child in question was his.

Or, maybe it would not. Hinata is under no illusions that Sasuke might want a child. He has told her many times that the Uchiha deserve to be wiped out, blotted out, erased like pencil lead until not even the faintest lines remain—himself included. Perhaps half the appeal of being with Hinata was the fact that she was not capable of conceiving.

She's thought about the possible reactions he may have, but she has not obsessed over them like a frenetic, fretting hen. That's because, in the end, what Sasuke wants does not matter.

What matters is that Hinata wants to keep the child, this affirmation that life has fully returned to her body. It is a candle touching another candle, becoming two flames instead of one. It is the sun's reflection on the waters of a still pond; it is the first buds of spring forcing up green shoots through the melting snow.

There is the sound of her heartbeat: slow, methodical. Underlaying it is a smaller, more delicate tattoo beating in tune with hers. She could no more wish to harm this lifeform than she could kill herself, or Sasuke-kun. It is her, it is a part of her, and it is something entirely separate: two wings of a single bird, then two birds in flight; the branches of a tree, and the fruit that falls. Together. Separate. The same. Different.

If Sasuke no longer loves her—if, in her absence, he remembers Sakura—she will bear him no ill will. She will love the woman he loves. If he no longer desires Hinata because she has become cow-like, because she points to a future that he has sought to destroy—well then, it is not her problem.

This creature inside of her is just as much a part of herself as it is a piece of him. If he does not want to share in the tending of the orchard, Hinata reasons, then he will not enjoy the fruit, even if he has helped to plant the seed.

As simple as that.

Except that, for the umpteenth time, Hinata is standing stock-still in the middle of the road, her feet unwilling to bring her closer to Konoha.

She cannot fool herself about Sasuke. If he does not love her, she will wilt like an unwatered flower. But she will not die. She has important things to do now—things she must live for.

She bites her thumb, drawing blood which she smears on the summoning tattoo on her arm. There is a great cloud of smoke, and a whooshing sound, until she is face to face with a giant tortoise.

"Shell sister?" the tortoise squeaks.

It is not Erishiki. Hinata would not bother the old sorceress with such a summoning. "Jeri-chan," Hinata murmurs in greeting. Jeri is the great-great-great-great-(great?) granddaughter of Erishiki, a bright-eyed tortoise with a red shell and matching eyes.

"Are you in danger?" the tortoise asks, clicking her beak nervously.

"No," Hinata says with a smile, "I was just lonely. Walk with me?"

Jeri snorts, as if insulted. "I'll do better than that. Hop on."

After some negotiating, Hinata accepts. After all, her feet do ache tremendously, and her lower back is starting to have sharp pains. Jeri ambles on at a slow pace—_Plod. Plod. Plod._ Her footfalls lull Hinata into a soothing stupor as she sits, cross-legged, on the tortoises' shell.

Despite their languid pace, they reach Konoha's gates by twilight, the electric blues and thin oranges coloring the stone walls. She is glad she is resting on Jeri's shell, because up ahead, she can see Sasuke, accompanied by Naruto and Sakura. Thank the gods, it's not a party, it's just those three, but the sight of Sasuke makes her knees turn to jelly. She grips the shell beneath her and forces herself to hold her head high.

There's no way she can hide her belly—she's as big as the buddha himself. So she just sits there, like a statue of the fertility goddess at the spring festival, borne up by a meandering tortoise_. Plod. Plod. Plod._ Sasuke and company don't leave the gates—they probably can't, Hinata realizes with a start, because Sasuke isn't allowed to leave the village, not while he's on house arrest. So Hinata is the only one that moves, with agonizing slowness, on the back of her summons.

Sasuke's face looms larger as they draw nearer. His shadowed form resolves into the details of dark eyes, thin-pressed lips, and the feigned nonchalance of his hands stuffed into his pockets. Hinata smiles, because he looks petulant, like a child that's been kept waiting too long for a holiday gift. She rests her hands on her belly, and the smile turns more awkward and brighter at the same time. She searches his face for a reaction—there is none, or at least, none that she can gauge from this distance.

Jeri comes to a stop just inside the gates, but Hinata cannot bear to dismount. She peers down at Sasuke, trying not to betray the inchoate emotions fluttering inside of her.

"H-hey, Sasuke-kun," she whispers. She knows it's rude to ignore Naruto and Sakura, but she can't help it. Her vision tunnels in on Sasuke, and there is nothing else.

"You got fat," he says, smirking.

She blinks down at him. "Wh-what?"

Hinata had pictured this going very, very differently. Startled out of her stunned state, she slides down Jeri's back and lands gracefully, despite the pins-and-needles traveling up and down her legs.

Sasuke shrugs. "I knew you had a sweet tooth, but—"

She doesn't let him finish. "Are you k-k-kidding me?" She's staring at him, incredulous.

She can hear Sakura snickering, and Naruto too, he can't help it, they are both trying—and failing—to stifle their laughter. Hinata ignores them, her eyes never leaving Sasuke. She sees warring emotions crossing over his face: a light blush, a tightening of his eyes, a tick in his jaw. Embarrassment, annoyance; ire.

Finally, he mutters, "It's not my fault if you gained weight. What kind of ninja—"

"Sasuke," she snaps, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath before continuing. "I'm not fat. I'm _pregnant_." Her eyes flutter open, and she keeps her face free of any emotion; she cannot afford to give away her position.

Sasuke blinks at her, slowly, like a cow with its head caught in a fence. His face falls. "Oh," is all he says. Hinata feels her heart skip a beat. It's true, then. He is disappointed. All of her worst fears are materializing.

Sasuke no longer loves her. Worse, he does not want the baby.

But the sensation of falling through space only lasts a moment. Hinata curls her hands protectively around her abdomen and spears him with a glare. "Oh? Just—_oh?_ Don't you have anything else to say?" she asks, her voice quiet but steely.

"I guess…congratulations," he mumbles, looking down at his shoes. "Who… Who is the father?"

Hinata wants to hit him. She wants to smack him in the face and beat some sense into him. She stares at him, her face going from white to red, flushing with rage. He looks up at her with wide, uncomprehending eyes.

That's what does it, that blank look, like she's sprouted another head and he's not quite sure what to make of it. Hinata breaks into hysterical laughter, until she is leaning up against her summon's shell, hot tears trailing down her face. She literally can't breathe, and it's many moments before she can finally manage, through her gasps, "Sasuke-kun? I haven't s-slept with anyone besides _y-you…"_

His eyebrows furrow. "So you're saying…?"

"Geez, bastard," Naruto bellows, "open up your ears! She's pregnant with your kid!"

"Naruto," Sakura snaps," it's a private moment. Shut your face."

Sasuke is unmoving, unresponsive, so Hinata takes the initiative. She sniffles, draws her arms around her bulging belly, and regains her former gravitas.

"I don't know if you want to be a father or not," she says, slowly, as if the words are heavy in her mouth. "Probably you have no real desire to be one. But I—I've decided to keep the baby, anyway," Hinata blurts out. "No matter what you say."

Sasuke opens his mouth, but no words come out. Doing her best to sound completely calm, Hinata continues, "And of course, I don't pretend to know if you still…well, we haven't seen each other in half a year, and I— Well, I'm perfectly capable of raising her by myself." Hinata hopes she sounds firm.

"…Her…?" Sasuke manages at last.

Hinata nods, staring down at the ground. "It's a girl." _Not that you seem to care, _she thinks, blinking back tears. "Well, I guess I'll be going then," Hinata whispers. But going where? She no longer has a place to stay in the village since severing her ties with the Hyuga clan. She had been planning on lodging at the local inn, if Sasuke…didn't want her anymore.

Gods, she is such a fool. She can feel heat inflaming her cheeks. Her tongue clings to the roof of her mouth and she—

She feels one hand on her abdomen, and another on her shoulder. She looks up at Sasuke, startled. "Wha…?"

"You're really pregnant? With my…child?" he manages, his eyes searching hers.

Too choked up to speak, she nods her head _yes_. She'd really like to end this torture, to run as far away from this hopeless scene as fast as her legs will carry her, but she smothers the urge. She is no longer a fearful, mousy kunoichi. She will face this situation calmly, as befits a true shinobi. Never mind that where Sasuke touches her, sparks arc over her skin. Never mind that she is trembling.

"I…don't know what to say," Sasuke mumbles at last.

Hinata takes a deep breath. "If you don't—if you don't love me anymore," she whispers, her mouth going dry, "then just say so."

His eyes meet hers, and she longs to reach out and cradle the familiar curve of his cheek. But she does not. Instead, she drinks in the familiar waters of his dark eyes, roiling like the ocean at night, because this might be the last time she looks into those depths. Already, time draws out like a vast desert between them, and she is afraid of the answer he will give her.

She bites her lower lip until it bleeds. She curses herself for showing weakness, but damn it, this man already knows all her weaknesses, all her strengths, everything, anyway. His eyes flicker to her lips, then he does something unexpected. He leans forward and licks the blood off of her lips.

She melts into his arms as his lips follow, metallic tasting, sweet. Oh, that's right. She had forgotten how to speak without words, how to breath without air; to fly without wings. How could she have forgotten so much in only six months? Her tremulous hand comes to rest on his cheek, while the other wraps around his waist.

When they part, Naruto and Sakura are nowhere in sight—not that they would have noticed them, anyway. Her summons, Jeri, has also taken the hint and returned from whence she came, though Hinata did not notice her departure either.

Sasuke smirks down at her, his eyes gleaming like wet, black sand. "What kind of question was _that?"_ he asks, and Hinata blushes.

"A b-bad one?" She manages a lopsided smile.

"Tch. As if I'd let the mother of my child sleep in the gutter."

"In the _gutter?_ I'm not a hobo," Hinata teases. "I'm a ninja who made a fairly good salary on my last mission. I was going to sleep at the inn." She giggles, her heart feeling like a swollen river overflowing its banks in the spring.

Sasuke clucks his tongue at her, then leans his forehead against hers. "_Hokage-sama_ has already assigned you to be my personal babysitter."

Hinata pulls back. "What?"

"I'm on house arrest. And you are my housemate, bodyguard, and warden."

Hinata laughs at that, a bright, glassy sound. "Oh? And am I getting overtime pay for this mission?"

Sasuke makes a snorting sound before lowering his lips on hers, and she quickly forgets anything else she was going to say on the matter.

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><p><em>Thanks for reading! Please review:)<em>


	32. Sunwheel

Dearest readers,

Thanks so much for being with me on this wonderful and magical journey through "Better Off Dead." Your readership and encouragement has meant the world to me. Special thanks to **Uchiha.s, **who has beta'd all the chapters of this fic; I couldn't have gotten this far without you, girlfriend!

I feel like it is so appropriate that the final chapter is being posted on Easter weekend—after all, Hinata and Sasuke have literally come back from the dead. I don't mean this flippantly, and I think for the first time, I'd like to share something deeply personal here.

A lot of the inspiration for this story comes from my own life. About six years ago, I was run over as I was crossing the street by a truck, and suffered brain trauma. Among other things, I went from being a person who graduated college with highest honors to a person who had no short term memory—I couldn't even follow a cookie recipe! During my recovery, creative writing became an amazing tool: not only did it help me process my feelings, but it also built up my cognitive skills again. Fanfiction, for me, has been a total lifesaver in that way.

When I was recovering, I lost a lot of "friends," my job, and indeed, my whole former life. In fact, my memory was so whack, I couldn't even _remember_ a lot about my former life. I became, for all intents and purposes, a zombie. I was alive, but unable to enjoy or participate in normal life. Sound familiar? "Better Off Dead" ends with Hinata and Sasuke living again through the power of love. As cheesy as that sounds, I know that for me, I wouldn't have been able to come back to life without my loving family, my _real_ friends, and most importantly, the love of the Great Spirit/Universe/whatever you want to call it.

That's what Easter and a lot of the spring holidays from many cultures are all about, aren't they? Love trumps death, every time:)

Your encouragement has been so appreciated and healing, my friends. Thank you for being with me on my creative writing and healing journey:) I hope you'll keep in touch. I do have some other stories in progress, and I do believe I'll publish a few more after that.

I feel moved to mention another thing that I usually don't. If you'd like to check out my blog, it's up at:

**lettersandfeathers dot wordpress dot com**

I actually just wrote a whole blog about an original novel I'm working on about—you guessed it—the undead. I also have links under the "publications" tab leading to original stories of mine that have been published, for your reading pleasure. I hope you'll check it out.

Well, sorry for the long author's note; just feeling all teared up at the end of this story. It's been an incredible ride. Thank you for traveling with me.

And now, as my beta says: _Fetus!SasuHinaSprog FTW!_

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><p>Chapter Thirty-Two: <em>Sunwheel<em>

_The lonesomest night surely passes,_

_True true love never dies._

_~True True Love Never Dies, Traditional_

Hinata wishes she wasn't sweating, but she can't help it. It's unseasonably warm for autumn, and she is stuck in session with the council. Despite the open windows, there is no breeze. She's nine months pregnant, and no matter how she sits in her gods-damned chair, she cannot find a comfortable position. Sasuke snakes a steadying hand around her lower back and discretely massages her, but it does little to dull the pain.

"Outrageous—absolutely _outrageous_," Hiashi snarls, his upper lip curled. "It's bad enough that my daughter has seceded from the Hyuga. But this? No. _This_ is going too far."

"Hiashi," Naruto replies in a warning tone, "new clans have been formed before, and they will be formed again. Every other clan head agrees to this proposal, and I—"

"There must be stipulations," Hanabi breaks in. "We will agree if you meet _all _of our stipulations."

Hinata resists the urge to brain herself on the table as Hanabi enumerates her demands once more. "One, Hinata must forgo any claims on her inheritance—"

"I've already done that," Hinata mutters, but Hanabi presses on as if she did not hear her.

"And of course, we would need her to do so officially, with the proper seals and paperwork," Hanabi proclaims. "Second, her children and her children's children and all of her future offspring are forever barred from entering the Hyuga clan. _Forever _barred. Third, Hinata needs the branch seal, as do her potential offspring." Hanabi wrinkles her nose on the last word, as if _offspring_ is a euphemism for _demon spawn._

Hinata closes her eyes. They have been going back and forth on these issues, getting nowhere, for hours. And Hinata has just sat quietly, twiddling her thumbs, while the Hokage and everyone else has argued her points for her. They have told her not to speak; they have assured her that Naruto and his counselors will do the work for her. But it's not working, and she's tired of the bullshit. Damn it all, she can speak for herself without stuttering or making a muck out of everything.

She's different, now.

Hinata pushes her chair back with a start, the loud dragging noise of the chair legs turning everyone's eyes to her. "Honored heads of the Hyuga clan," Hinata says into the sudden silence, "I agree wholeheartedly with your first two points. You can keep my inheritance. Neither I nor my children have any desire to be a part of the Hyuga," she mutters, placing her hands on her bulging stomach. The baby kicks, as if in agreement.

Hinata takes a deep, quavering breath, and forces herself to go on.

"But we will not—I repeat, _will not_—bear the branch seal. My eyes are no longer the eyes of the Hyuga," she says, quietly but with conviction. She activates her chakra pathways until her golden eye gleams and her Sharingan whirls. "You have no jurisdiction over me, and anyway, it would be ridiculous for the leaders of one clan to have control over another. You bring shame to the Hyuga by being so stubborn. Take what you can from these agreements, but do no overstep yourselves."

With blazing eyes, Hinata takes her seat and folds her arms over her chest. "Hokage-sama," she continues before anyone can speak, "please end this. If the Hyuga refuse to agree, put it to a majority vote."

"I agree with Hinata-sama," Naruto intones before Hiashi or Hanabi can get a word in. "I motion to vote."

"But—" Hanabi cries.

"All in favor?" Naruto asks.

Unsurprisingly, all but the Hyuga are in favor; the measure passes. Before anyone can congratulate her or adjourn the session, Hinata rises to her swollen feet once more. "As the first official act of the Sunwheel clan, I have three things I would like to ask of the council."

Hinata pauses to take a deep breath. She's never had to address the council before, and now that her anger is cooled, she's a little nervous. Hinata reminds herself that not long ago, she was the Hyuga heir, and was trained in this kind of thing. Sasuke, his eyes smokey and soft, shoots her a smirk—she finds it oddly reassuring. Smiling gently, she rests her hands on the table and clears her throat.

"My first request is that the lands previously deeded to the Uchiha be turned over to us."

"Done," Naruto agrees. "No one was using that land anyway. It's yours. And that's a decision I can make without approval from the council," Naruto says, silencing Hanabi with a glare, "since those lands reverted to the state ages ago. Next?" he asks, grinning wolfishly.

"I ask that the Uchiha fortune be—"

"Absolutely not," Hiashi interjects. "That money was supposed to go into the general fund! We voted on it, right after the war."

"Er…well," Naruto admits, his grin turning sheepish, "you see, I never actually had the heart to touch the account. The Uchiha fortune is still intact. And as the arbiter of the treasury—"

"Objection!" Hiashi cries, his eyes flashing.

"Objection overruled," Tsunade replies, leaning her elbows on the table and giving Hiashi a half-lidded, cat-like glare. "The Hokage does not need council approval to divvy out the Uchiha accounts to their rightful heir."

"But—"

"So Hinata-sama," Naruto breaks in, blithely ignoring Hiashi, "what was that third thing you wanted?"

A wicked smile curves her lips. "As the newest clan in Konoha, we would like to open membership to anyone who wishes to join our clan. Fifth sons and daughters who don't have room for leadership positions within their own clans can enjoy such positions within ours. Can we all agree on that?"

"An excellent idea, Hianta-sama," Sakura, sitting on Naruto's right, calls. "There's been a huge baby-boom after the war. Too many ninja, not enough jobs. I think we can all agree on this piece, Hyuga-sama?"

Hiashi lowers his gaze, defeated. "Indeed," he rumbles. "The Hyuga agree."

The vote—for once—is unanimous. Hinata's smile broadens. Without sitting down, she ventures, "Very good. Who ever wishes to join our clan should know that we have the power to remove unwanted seals, granting freedom to—"

"What?" Hiashi roars, "I never agreed to—"

"I'm afraid you just did," Hinata interjects, her voice soft but cutting. "The vote has been ratified and bears your signature. If any from the Hyuga branch family wish to shed their seals—"

"Impossible!"

"—then they can do so," Hinata finishes. Exhausted, she plops down in her chair.

"Impossible," Hiashi mutters, raising to his feet, red-faced.

"It's all too possible, Hiashi," Naruto counters. "You just signed it. I've been begging you to do this for the past five years, but you always refused. Now, everyone finally can decide their own destinies without having to answer to _you_. I now adjourn this session of council. Good work everyone!" Naruto calls, giving Hinata and Sasuke a thumbs-up.

Sasuke helps Hinata out of the counsel chambers before her father can pounce on her. While Hinata sways with weariness, Sasuke is grinning from ear to ear. The expression seems both incongruous and charming to Hinata.

"First thing we'll do is torch the entire Uchiha district," he says as he leads her down the stairs.

"Not that there's much left, after Pein's attack," Hinata replies. "But feel free to katon away. We'll have to do one section at a time—make sure the fire doesn't get out of control."

"After that, we'll build," Sasuke continues, still smiling widely. "I've already lined up construction contracts with some lower-born Nara members. We'll deed them land for free, and they'll build extra houses for us in return."

"Makes sense. Their forest abuts the northern half of the district, anyway. Plus, they're good neighbors, and friends," Hinata adds, her eyes twinkling. "I've worked out the last few kinks in the seal removing jutsu. Neji-niisan said he'd be happy to be our first guinea pig and honorary clan member."

They exit the Hokage's tower and stride out into the bright sunshine. Despite the heat of the day, Sasuke takes her arm. She sags against him and leans her head against his shoulder. Gods, but she is tired. She tells herself that she should feel empowered—she has stood up to her family and _won_—but mostly, she just feels heavy and hollow. It feels like she has lost something precious.

She slides her free hand over her swollen belly, feeling the familiar chakra of her child under her palm. She wonders if Hiashi will want to hold his first grandchild; she wonders if her father will ever want anything to do with Hinata's new family, or if they will continue on as strangers, or enemies, for the rest of their lives.

Hinata and Sasuke walk in pensive silence, down the streets shimmering with heat. After a while, she glances up at Sasuke, but he doesn't meet her gaze. His eyes are glazed and hard, glinting darkly, and his brow is furrowed. Beads of perspiration run down his clenched jaw. Hinata bites her lip and slows her pace.

"Sasuke-kun?"

He doesn't answer her. His eyes are still fixed on the horizon, focusing on something that Hinata can't see. A sense of loss clenches her heart and lungs and for a moment, it is hard to breathe. Tears blur her vision. She wipes them away with sweaty fingers, the perspiration stinging her eyes.

Suddenly, like being caught in a strange genjutsu, Hinata has the sensation that she is standing on a dark precipice, and below her, all her old grief crashes like a roiling sea beneath a swollen moon. She is overcome by vertigo as the vision fades, leaving her blinking blindly in the bright sunshine.

She stands still in the middle of the street, and Sasuke, his arm still in hers, is looking at her, his expression masked. But as her vision clears, she can see the darkness in his eyes, like an ocean lapping wildly at the night sky, silver stars scintillating coldly in the depths. She doesn't look away.

She knows better than to ask him what is wrong. And anyway, she already knows.

"My family will come round," Hinata whispers, her voice hoarse with emotion. "They'll accept us…eventually." Not sure if she believes her own words, Hinata pats her pregnant belly and offers him a sad smile.

Sasuke looks away and scowls. He leads her to a park bench under a gnarled oak tree which sways in a gentle breeze. A few yellow leaves fall, landing at their feet in the withered grass.

"Hn," is all he says as he sits beside her, his shoulders slumped, his head bowed. He looks so…alone, Hinata thinks, though she is sitting right beside him.

Hinata sighs and falls back against the bench, squeezing her eyes shut against the tears. Then the baby kicks, and a smile flickers on her face. She curls her arms around her belly, and her sadness disappears like a shadow chased away by the sun.

She sits up straight then, head held high, eyes glinting with determination. She and Sasuke have overcome death itself; she has no doubt that they can conquer any other challenges that come their way. They will create a new family, a new clan—a new home. Hinata takes Sasuke's hands and places them on either side of her bulging belly, her hands covering his. At that exact moment, baby turns in her womb, sending a fluttering feeling through her body and making her giggle. She gives Sasuke's hands a hard squeeze, then looks into his eyes, now glittering like mica in the sunlight. A faint smile plays on his lips.

"Anyway," Hinata murmurs, releasing his hands, "we have what we need now. We're a real clan. I rather like the surname. Sunwheel. Sunwheel Hinata. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

Sasuke gives her an inscrutable look, the brightness in his eyes becoming veiled once more. "Are you sure…?" he begins, but trails off, looking down at his hands.

Hinata knows what he's thinking. Officially, they are co-clan heads: nothing more, nothing less. She runs a hand through his hair, marveling at how cool and soft it is, twisting in her fingers like silk skeins. "I'm sure."

"Tch. You didn't even let me finish my question," Sasuke complains.

"Sasuke-kun," Hinata replies softly, "you don't need to marry me. I'm happy with everything the way it is." Hinata smiles and leans her head on his shoulder. She can tell he is sputtering even without looking at him.

"But—"

"If we got married, we'd have to have this whole big wedding. It'd be a mess with my family and all the political pressure—I don't want that. It's much better the way things are. Don't you agree?"

Sasuke settles back against the bench. "Hn."

They sit like that for a long time, the cool evening breeze sighing through the trees and spilling golden leaves at their feet. Hinata hums in contentment.

"Hey," she ventures at last, "do you want to burn some buildings in the old Uchiha district? I'm in the mood."

He doesn't say anything, but then, he doesn't have to. His grin says it all.

Soon, they are standing in front of a flaming foundation—the old dojo, Sasuke tells her—watching the flickering reds and oranges reach up like tongues wagging at the twilight. Hinata wishes she had brought marshmallows, and makes a mental note to bring some next time they torch the place.

"Sasuke-kun?" she calls, taking his hands and drawing him out of his thoughts; she can tell that he has been brooding again. She brings her lips close to his ear and murmurs, "It's good to be alive."

His mouth slants up into a lopsided smile, then he leans down to kiss her. Their profiles are backlit against the fire, and it looks like one dark silhouette is reaching for the other, two shadows merging until they are one darkness standing at heart of the fire, its red fringes lapping at the purpling sky.

"Hinata?" he whispers into her hair. "It _is_ good to be alive."

THE END

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><p><em>Again, thank you for reading;) Please review!<em>


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